Design Wall / BOMs Away Monday - June 13

Despite having the weight of McCall's Design Star 2011 - Challenge #1 (Designer Bios are now online) on my shoulders, I had pre-planned time in AZ with my parents and to work specifically with my mother on the Jinny Beyer 2010 BOM - Jinny's Garden. So....last Wednesday I hitched a ride to AZ with our nephew, Neville, who just finished his 1st year of Mechanical Engineering at Walla Walla University. We left at 2:30p and made it to Scottsdale, AZ by 11:20am on Thursday. We switched drivers several times trying to stay awake and taking naps when we weren't driving. When it was daylight on Wednesday, we saw some beautiful country and lots of rainbows! That was the cool part. During the night I saw no less than 10 elk to the side of the road which made me very nervous that they would run out in front of us. Fortunately, we didn't make contact with anything, but a few bugs, the entire trip! On Thursday morning it had suddenly gone from about 36 degrees (somewhere in NE Nevada) to 72 degrees in Las Vegas, NV.

So, progress on my JB-BOM! Yes indeed. If you're not familiar with Jinny's 2010 BOM, the blocks are foundation pieced and were delivered monthly via her newsletter last year (she is doing another BOM this year--very different--you can sign-up for her newsletter to get it). In May 2010, my mother and I were fortunate enough to visit her studio in Virginia and purchased fabrics that we wanted to use. Each will be similar but different.

After arriving on Thursday, I was pretty tired, but started in on my blocks. Block #2 I discovered has a fabric, that they substituted from the original, in the pack that I purchased at JB's Studio, but I had marked on my fabric chart that I had some in my personal stash. Unfortunately I didn't bring it with me, so I think I'll skip Block #2 and do it at home. I was able to do blocks 3, 4, and 5.
-->whoops I decided at the very end of the day on Sunday to do block #2 anyway ;-)

Friday after a walk in the beating sun ;-) ....I got blocks 6, 7, and 8 done. For the Lotus Blossom I'm doing it in the 'white/yellow' scheme because I want to make the Peony blocks with pinks so need to move the Lotus Blossom to the Peony spot and will put the Peonies in the center (there are 3 and I just think since it is such a different # of flowers in the block would work better in the center) and move the center block one to the right where the Lotus Blossom was originally.

Saturday enjoyed a restful day with my parents and worked in the evening to get the Daffodil done (block #9).

Sunday I worked diligently to get the last 4 done. Three of these use border prints. I'm really excited about how they turned out. So much that on the black-eyed susan, I don't think I need to add a 'dark' center since my fussy cutting facilitated the affect of a dark center! YEAH!

I wanted to do pink peonies like in my yard, so used a different border print.

On the chrysanthemum (below) the second from the bottom petals got enough black in the fabric that it has a lot more texture and the pot has an upward glow vs. a downward one on the original.

The dahlia (right) I discovered when trying to remove the paper that I missed adding the upper most petal in dark purple. What do you think? Should I worry about it and go back to it or just leave it as is?

So...some have sashings, others need their paper removed as well as sashings added, but here are all the pieced blocks. I can see now why the lotus blossom in white is toooooooo much in terms of a good balance, but the coloring is more of what I think of when thinking of a lotus blossom. I might switch the Tulip and Crocus positions. Any other ideas?

I've decided that is enough for now and must move on to the Challenge project in order to get it done. So...there will be a future BOM post to see it completed as well as quilted.

My mom had all but one block done when I arrived. She now has her quilt center completely assembled. She chose to do this BOM because she felt the 'whitish' sashing had a 'wood' like look to it and gave a floral quilt a masculine feel. My dad likes to work with wood, so it reminded her of him. On Friday he built her a design wall in her new sewing room so she was able to put all of the pieces up. It was then that she told him why she was inspired to make it and he was very pleased. She will have this as a 3rd option now for their bed. She'll get the borders on easily before I leave on Friday. I get to take this home with me and quilt it so that it can be ready for our local quilt show in September.

Judy has Design Walls linked @ Patchwork Times.
Lynette has BOM's Away Mondays linked @ What A Hoot.