Preparing for Mysteries

I've been playing with colour choices the last couple of days.  There are two mystery quilts coming up that I want to participate in, so I went digging in my stash for some fabric for them.  The challenge is they both need fairly large pieces of fabric - 3-4 yards of certain colours - and my stash tends to be more in the 1-2 yard range.  So I pulled out the largest yardages to start with.  Basically, that boiled down to a multi-colour batik, a light green batik, a bright pink batik again, and a burgundy & cream which were originally bought for a spring mystery that I never did.

Quilt 1 is Judy's "Tell it to the Stars" - a block of the month mystery starting on Jan 1.  It needs about 3yards of 2 different fabrics, and 4 yards of background, plus some others (6 fabrics in all). This will be a challenge to pull from stash, but here are a few of my thoughts. I started with the pink, and the multicolour batiks. Found a set of 3 purples to go with - not bad, but I'm not in love with it.  I tried subbing the pink with green - eh.  So I'm still not sure about either of these groupings, and they both need a light background fabric to go with them.

There may be a shopping trip in my future - especially since the LQS whispered something about a January sale.  My last Patchwork Times mystery fabric was bought at the last Jan sale, and it worked out really well, so that may be a plan.

The other is from QTMysteryQuilts and it is a New Year's Eve mystery.  I think that means that we are going to go through the entire quilt in a single day.  Cutting directions are already out, so it's all sewing, all day on the 31st.  Only one fabric with large requirements for this one, but still a challenge to find 4 fabrics, given minimal direction.

I started with the green this time, and added a dark and light green to go with it.  Then I needed an accent colour.  I tried this blue/purple multicolour, but it didn't really sit right for me.  Thought it might be a bit better with  this orange/red print but maybe not. 

Then I noticed the burgundy set aside for the spring mystery, and pulled it into play. Much better I think, so this will likely become a quilt, although I may rethink the yellow.  It's a small yardage, so I can switch that out easily. 


I finally washed an ironed the fabric for Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery.  Clue 1 is out - and clue 2 comes on Friday.  So I should get moving on this one, but I have other projects to finish first. I may start out a bit behind on this mystery, but I should be able to catch up after the 15th.

And while I was hunting down fabric for 3! new projects, I did at least finish one.  This bird of paradise was a class at the spring retreat I attended. Finally quilted it and put the binding on this week.

Design Wall Monday - Dec 2

Not much on my design wall today.  I did get my final block party block completed, so it's all set for Saturday.  I'm actually starting to like Lemoyne stars - this one worked out great - it lays flat, points are in the right place, and everything.

Other than that, I've been working on finishing stuff.  Put the last stitches in my Kaffe Fassett quilt last night, so it's all ready for show and tell.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to this week.

I'm linking this finish up at Such a Sew and So, for the December finishes party.

Stash Report - Dec 1

Wow, December already.  Time to get the tree up, but I spent most of my week quilting instead, so I have bit of progress to report today.  Swoon is off the long arm, and just needs binding. There's hope it might be done by the 14th, especially if I get the binding washed today.

7.5 yards backing for swoon quilt
.5 yard binding for Kaffe quilt
Total used - 8 yards this week.

Total for the year: 240 yards.  Drop by Judy's blog for more stash reports today.

December's Get it Done!

Last month I set these goals for myself.  And I made quite good progress, if I do say so myself

1. finish binding labyrinth - Done
2. quilt and bind Living in Harmony - Done
3. bind bear paw - not done
4. catch up on BOM - Downtwon, Toes in the Sand, and Block party. - Done

Poor old bear paw has been on the list two or three months in a row now, and I keep ignoring it.  Maybe next month.  But, in addition to all those lovely finishes, I started and finished my diamond star quilt, pieced my labyrinth quilt (hmm, just noticed the name conflict with my "other" labyrinth - I guess I'll be renaming this one.  Maybe "A-maze-ing Effects"), and made a Christmas wall hanging.

For December, I'd like to continue my finishing streak.

Urban Candy

1. quilt & bind swoon
2. quilt & bind Urban Candy
3. extend "challenge" top from retreat
4. quilt & bind christmas wall hanging

The first 3 of those are "due" December 14.  That might be a stretch, but hopefully the quilting can be done on two of them, and the piecing on #3.

That's not to say I won't be working on the Bonnie Hunter mystery, and the Border Creek Station mystery, and another diamond star quilt.  Just not making any promises about those :)

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to in December.

Friday Update

After my non-starter day earlier this week, my swoon quilt is on the long arm.  I couldn't find any king-size white batting the LQS, so I decided to go ahead and piece it.  I have my queen batting all loaded up, and when I reach the bottom I'll figure out how to handle the shortfall.

I'm hoping to get this quilted and bound before the 14th, for a show and tell.  It's a big quilt, but so far things are going fairly smoothly with the quilting.  Hopefully I didn't speak too soon :)

It could be a busy weekend. Tomorrow is "Get it Done" link up day.  Bonnie's Celtic Solstice started today.  Back to Square One mystery should end on Sunday.  And then it will be time to think about catching up with all my block of the month projects.

The best laid plans

I was all set tonight to start quilting my swoon quilt.  It is enormous - about 106" square, but I have a wide backing for it, and have figured out my quilting plan.  So I headed downstairs, quilt and backing in hand and loaded up the long arm.  Then I turned to the closet to pull out the white batting I knew I had in there - and it's only a queen size!  93x106" - not nearly big enough :(  I debated piecing some batting, but decided I didn't want this particular quilt to have pieced batting if I could avoid it. So, my longarm is now loaded with a backing I can't do anything with, until after I get to the shop later this week.  I sure hope they have some king size white batting in stock.

So, instead of quilting swoon tonight, I headed back upstairs to see if I could get started on my next quilt.  Printed out the plan from EQ, and started counting fabric. I knew I had enough for the original, but I have decided to extend this one a bit.  And, naturally, I'm short on one of the fabrics for the new plan.  I couldn't find anything in the stash that would work, either as a replacement or an extension, so that's off the list for tonight too.

So, moving on, I dug out some sashing fabric for a charity quilt I'm working on - and now can't find the blocks I'm sure I made.  These are the blocks I have, but I was sure I had made about 10 more.  If I did, they've found themselves an excellent hiding place.  Time to give up for tonight I think.

Design Wall Monday - Nov 25

UPDATE January 2018:
The pattern for this quilt is now available on Etsy from this link.

My design wall isn't big enough to hold today's project. So here it is on my design floor. All done except for the borders - I have to check how much of the dark I have left, to figure out how wide the borders can be.

I'm thrilled with how this came out.  And even more thrilled that I had enough fabric - there is a 30"x5" strip left of the light purple.  I wish I could remember exactly  how much fabric I bought for this project.

I think this picture looks even more 3-dimensional than the other.  The quilt is actually square, but the dark pieces on 2 corners are blending into my floor so well that it looks like they aren't there.

Drop by Judy's blog for more design walls today.