Oh, Crap! I Only Have 5 Weeks to Quilt Jingle BOM Before It EXPIRES!

Just when I was relaxing away without a deadline, an awful realization slammed into my peaceful reveries while I was driving home from choir practice last night.  Do you guys remember my Jingle BOM (Block of the Month) quilt, the one I started way back in 2013?  This is my first-ever appliqué quilt, designed by Erin Russek of One Piece At a Time.  The appliqué was a huge learning curve. Learning to piece the blocks accurately so they all finished the right size was a learning experience.  Dealing with the Crisis of the Bleeding Fabric Dye was an ordeal in and of itself.  Figuring out how to set the center medallion straight instead of on point like the original pattern, with inner borders sized correctly for the appliqué block border to fit was challenging.  Am I forgetting anything?  And after all of that, I absolutely adore how this quilt top ended up when I finished it back in February of this year.

My 72 x 72 Jingle Quilt Top, Completed in February of This Year

I knew my longarm skills weren't ready to tackle this special quilt quite yet, so I carefully packed it away in Quilt Purgatory (the closet in my guest bedroom).  But before doing so, I had the idea of embroidering the dates "2013-2019" on one of the quilt blocks.  Because I'd definitely get it quilted by the end of the year, right?

Expiration Dates!

AAAAAHHHH!!!  I embroidered the dates on the very first applique block that I made in 2013.  Before you tell me to just remove those stitches and change the date to 2020, I should confess that I traced the dates onto my fabric using a permanent yellow Pigma pen.  Those dates must remain.  I really, REALLY wanted this quilt to get finished before the end of the year -- but the end of the year has snuck up on me and taken me completely by surprise.

What do you guys think?  Jingle needs custom quilting, and I have very limited skills in that arena.  Just stitching in the ditch around the appliqué and embroidered dates is going to be challenging.  After my ruler work on my son's Mission Impossible graduation quilt, I feel like I could manage some ruler work crosshatching if I marked it ahead of time, but the traditional feather motifs I'm envisioning in my mind are likely to come out looking like strings of ogre toes if I try to quilt them on this quilt.  I wonder if I could quilt decent feathers in the setting triangles if I marked them first and had lines to follow?

Any and all suggestions appreciated.  I just got a new longarm ruler from Lisa Hagstoz Calle that is designed to facilitate stitch in the ditch around appliqué, so that almost seems like a message from the Universe telling me to give this a try and at least get it on my frame before the end of the year, even if I don't finish it by New Year's.  I just need to come up with a quilting plan within my current skill set that does the appliqué justice.  Oh, and I had planned to quilt this one with a double batting (wool over 80/20) to really emphasize the quilting, but I've never tried a double batting before, either.

Spirit Song Challenge: Can I Turn Easter Eggs Into a Pumpkin Spiced Latte for Thanksgiving? Also, I Have Nothing to Wear to Church This Sunday.

It has been awhile since I've had the luxury of sewing for relaxation, for myself, without any deadlines or external demands.  You guys -- this is so much FUN!  I snuck back up to my studio after dinner last night, thinking I'd just putter around for 30 minutes or so, and before I knew it, it was after eleven.  

These are all 4" Birds In the Air blocks right now, nothing is joined together.  I'm still deciding if I like the mix, adding in new fabrics, and rearranging the blocks on the wall.  Although this is a scrappy quilt, I suppose it's kind of a color study, exploring the possibilities of the Pink/Peach/Coral/Orange dress code palette.  By the way, this is my church choir's dress code again for this Sunday morning, November 24th, and we are still in the icy clutches of a cold snap.  Pink, peach, and coral with khaki is so much easier to find in spring and summer clothing than it is for fall and winter.  Where am I supposed to find something in these Easter egg colors that is WARM?!  Maybe that's why I'm mixing in the deeper caramels and butterscotch hues here and there, to tweak this spring color palette to better suit the week before Thanksgiving.  This is quilting alchemy at its finest, folks.  I'm trying to turn Easter eggs into a pumpkin spiced latte.

Completed Blocks as of Late Last Night

I planned the mix of colors and prints I wanted to use in a very rough, approximate way in EQ8 before I started cutting fabric, but I was choosing from random fabric images in the software that I may or may not have in my actual stash, just to get an idea of the look I'm going for.  So, as I'm choosing my fabrics and evaluating what I see on the wall in front of me, I keep referring back to this 8" x 10" image of my quilt design that I printed out from EQ:

Software-Generated Design

Somehow, a fair amount of purple snuck into my EQ8 design, likely pink prints that had enough blue or purple in them to read purplish from a distance.  Normally I wouldn't think of putting these lavender shades in a quilt that was predominantly pumpkin, caramel, orange and pink, but it adds some interesting sparkle, don't you think?  

I've made a glorious mess of my studio, pulling out all of these different fabrics and putting nothing away, but I might take a break from this to make another block for Anders' sampler quilt, or to load something up on the longarm machine.

If any of you has seen a pink/peach/coral sweater or sweater dress in a chain store recently, please let me know in the comments.  I have no idea what I'm wearing to church this Sunday!

I'm linking today's post with:

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

THURSDAY

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·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation