...and the Mystery begins!

There's probably no other event on the internet that is as highly anticipated among quilters as Bonnie Hunter's yearly mystery. And I have to admit that this year I've been a part of that group. Friday was the day of the uncovering of the first clue and quilters all over the world are choosing, cutting and sewing fabrics for the Grand Illusion Mystery.

The colors Bonnie had selected were yellow, green, pink and teal/aqua with black and neutral added in. I don't normally collect much in the way of teal fabrics and most of the ones that I do have didn't really match her colors. Not that that's necessary, but it helps when you're more color-challenged, as I sometimes seem to be. Initially I thought I might substitute purple/lavender for the teal/aqua but when I saw the first clue, I quickly changed my mind--purple just wouldn't have contrasted nearly as well with the pink. So I pulled out what I did have and went to work, cutting and sewing. I've got all the pieces for the "broken dishes" blocks cut out and I've gotten 13 of them sewn, with 87 more to do!

A couple of years ago I bought an Accuquilt Go! cutter and I love it for specific purposes. I figured cutting out 280 triangles would be a great use for it, but I didn't have the right die. Thanks to Amazon, one is on its way and should be here tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I stacked my strips 4 high, right sides together and used the Easy Angle ruler to cut just over 200 triangles. I was pleasantly surprised at how quick and easy I was able to get them cut! However, I still need 80 more triangles and I figure the die will be good for that. And who knows how many more triangles I might need before this quilt is finished?

I read Bonnie's advice about only sewing the number of pieces at a time that will fit on the length of your ironing board. That serves several purposes: for one, you're getting up and moving more often so it's good for your health. If you're working on a leader/ender project, you get more of those pieces sewn. And finally, your sewn parts don't get all twisted and tangled together. I tried doing it that way and found that it worked really well. It's just a bit tricky to figure how many you need to sew before stopping to press.

Laura wanted to press my mystery pieces for me, but she's a bit heavy and rough with the iron, so instead I gave her my leader/ender pieces to press. That worked for her and for me!

On another note, we had a very busy, happy Thanksgiving here with my mom and dad and all six of our children, 4 spouses and 8 of our grandchildren here. It was lots of fun, but Laura and I were both exhausted the day after Thanksgiving! In fact, she didn't even ask to sew that day, which is HIGHLY unusual. Instead she sat in the studio and played games on her Kindle. I was happy about that because it allowed me to sew uninterrupted for a few hours!

Julie Cefalu revealed two more rows for her Nordic Quilt-along and I got those done on Friday. I LOVE how it's turning out, although I've realized that I'm really short in red and white fabrics! Oh no--that must mean I need to do more shopping!

My 30's Stash

I'm a member of the Yahoo Stashbusters Group and someone on there suggested working specifically on busting their 30's fabrics. Several others chimed in that they wanted to be part of that sub-group and I thought that would be a good project for me to take on too. The "leaders" of the group thought it would be a good idea for each of us to take a picture and make an inventory of our 30's fabrics before we begin. I had a drawer of 30's fabrics and several larger pieces in with my regular stash. I didn't really think it was that much fabric until I began measuring. OH MY GOODNESS!! By the time I was done, I discovered that I have about 45 yards of just 30's fabrics! I was totally shocked!! And about half of that is in fat quarters! Needless to say, I'm going to have to get really busy to see those numbers go down! So now I'm in the process of looking for specific projects that will use up fabric quickly. And I have a feeling that Laura is going to be busy helping me--she'll be thrilled!

And now it appears that even more than ever, I need to "GET MORE DONE!"