January's BOM by Whirls n Swirls are done

Last week I joined a BOM by Whirls n Swirls to practice and expand on my quilting skills.  I bunch of people will be in this group, in a different forum than Facebook.  The BOM pays more attention to the quilting options than to making the blocks themselves.

I figure I am ok to write about the blocks themselves, however the quilting part will be for the forum only.  As I said in my previous post, I have decided to do all three options.  Now that I have them made, I can practice quilting each of them differently.

This fist block is for the traditional way of quilting, with traditional designs and motifs.

This second block will represent my modern style of quilting designs.

And lastly, this third option is to be the free hand style of quilting.

I have viewed the videos produced by Tracey Russell of Whirls n Swirls, and I have been practicing the different styles on paper.  I am ready and really wanting to start quilting them, but this weekend was already packed with all sorts of things.  I should be able to work on it next weekend.  The next BOM will be posted and I will have them to make too.

Saturday, I made some more samples, from newer patterns in different scales, I loaded the Xmas pineapple blossom quilt on the longarm to quilt, as this needs to be finished prior to February 1st.  This quilt is part of the UFO challenge I joined, with American Patchwork & Quilting.  I have only three days left to get this quilt done.

I now have the quilting done.  It only took me the good part of the afternoon/evening until 2:00 am this morning................and lack of sufficient sleep has made it slow going today. 

Today, I trimmed the quilt, made some bias striped binding and sewed it on by machine, to the top.  Now I am in the process of tacking down the binding by hand, to the backside.  So far, I managed to get almost one side done.  Handwork takes a while, though I have my label just about done, so there is still a chance I will make the deadline.  Three sides of binding on a queen sized quilt and two lines on the label, all to be done by hand.......may still make it.  Optimism and positive thinking will help my determination!