Christmas BOM Finally Finished

Yup, it's official.  I'm finally finished the FQS Designer Mystery BOM from 2010.  I finished it at retreat last weekend. This made my third finished quilt top for retreat.  Granted I just needed to finish the border, which took a LOT longer than anticipated.

I struggled with the border for a while.  I have no idea why, but I had issues aligning the stars so that they lined  up.  I cut fabric the wrong length.  I had a hole burned in my fabric, so I had to piece on part of the border that didn't need to be pieced originally.  Needless to say, I loathed this quilt come the end. Especially when I laid it down and realized it didn't lay flat in one area (see that pucker in the border on the right). Seriously?  I haven't had this many issues with a quilt in probably 5-7 years, when I was still just a novice quilter.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled that this top is done, but I think I'll be putting it away for a while until I grow to love it again and want to quilt the top.

I do want to note that the issues I had were not with the pattern itself.  The FQS did a good job with the pattern, I just had so many issues with the border.

Guess What I Finished?

That's right, I finally finished the ten stars that are going to be a part of the border for my 12 Days of Christmas, FQS BOM quilt.

The tricky part about these blocks was matching the point where the white points met near the center of the star.  Because the white pieces were at different angles, I couldn't just line them up and sew 1/4" seam.  I had to slightly overlap one over the other.  Let's just say I became friendly with my seam ripper while piecing these.  After I pieced the entire block, I realized that it actually looked cool when some of the blue points were cut off because it gave the block a more random look, which is the look that I think the block is going for, so I actually did it on purpose on some of the blocks.  It's so counter-intuitive to cut off points that I tried to make perfect, but I like the effect.

Christmas Quilt - After Christmas

Now that I have the Storm at Sea quilt finished I can begin working on other projects again.  Yay!

First up on my to-do list is to work on the Fat Quarter Shop's Designer Mystery BOM.  I had all 12 blocks made for a few months now, I just haven't gotten around to finishing the sashing and border. Well, this week I managed to finish the sashing, a step in the right direction.

Now to make 10 10.5" square blocks for the border...

FQS Designer Mystery BOM - Block 12

WHOO HOOO!!!! Did you here that from wherever you are? You must have because of how excited I am to finish these blocks.

The 12th and final block in the FQS Designer Mystery BOM (2010) is finished!  Now this one actually looks like an ornament, not a Chinese lantern.

Now to work on the sashing and pieced border...

FQS Designer Mystery BOM - Block 11

And block 11 is finished.  Just one more to go after this.

I love the uneven bow in this block.  I think it adds character.  I wouldn't really associate a basket with Christmas, more Easter, but it's still cute. 

One more to go (oh, wait, i already said that...)

FQS Designer Mystery BOM - Block 10

I finally got back to working on the FQS Designer Mystery BOM after a few weeks off and finished block 10.

I love this block.  I think the elves ice skating are so cute here, and the bow is adorable.

Now to finish block 11 and 12...