A New Paper Piecing BOM

I've been working on a paper pieced BOM with my BQB Janice. It's all kinds of birds and I enjoy doing them very much.  I'd made a decision not to add any more BOMs to my to-do list this year, but something caught my eye while I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Vrooman's Quilts. Sharon always has something fun going on, and lots of cool links on her sidebar.

Anyway, on her page I found a link to this:

 Janeen van Niekerk of Quilt Art Designs

The picture jumped out at me from the get-go, and then I saw that she designs paper piece blocks. Ohhhh, be still my heart. And better yet, she's doing a paper pieced BOM for 2014! Yippee!! When I saw the first few blocks I was hooked!!

So now, I will add her button to my side bar, and do my best to follow along and have some fun. Yes, I have several tops that need quilting, and yes this will add to that stack, BUT how much fun will this be?!!!

April BOM

Here are the paper pieced blocks Janice and I did for April.

This wasn't supposed to be a chickadee. *grin* But I altered it to make it one. This was the third one I did. The first two didn't make me happy.

Here is Janice's bird. It's much brighter in color. I love it.

Since we always end up making two blocks for each month, this was the second one I did.

April showers bring May flowers....I got my bright in on this one. Heh heh. My only disappointment is that the pattern in the sky is off a bit in the right triangle. I didn't realize it until it was too late. I'm going to keep it though.

I've already done one for May but will wait until then to post it.

Challenging November BOM

As badly as I hate to admit it, I'm not as good as I'd like to be when it comes to piecing blocks. I've done ok so far, simply because I draw it all out on graph paper to my own specifications. That has been good for me, allowing me to slip into quilting and gain a little confidence.

This really challenged that confidence.

I learned the hard way that the seam allowances must be absolutely exact or it just doesn't work. This is supposed to be a 12 1/2" square, but it's a hair over that. I would use my trusty seam ripper to take it apart and try again, but I wound up doing the smaller leaf block 3 times. So, I decided it would do. I had an issue with having enough on the edges to square it up without losing the 1/4" on the edge.

My friend Janice did the same pattern and hers turned out exactly right. Even though she's new at piecing, she has a natural talent for it.

Her colors are so vibrant. She is good at picking out fabrics that work well together and give it a unique look.

So, this is our first BOM and we are trying to decide on one for December. We already have the first three months of 2013 chosen. It's sure a lot of fun and not as much pressure when it's just the two of us. I'm not ready for a blogworld BOM thing. Maybe someday.