SusieQOH, last year was my first time making the mystery along with everyone else. It helped me to at least get all the pieces cut and put in the project box when each clue came out. Cutting is not my favorite thing to do, so I'm a thousand times more likely to pick it up and sew as I get the time if the pieces are already cut and waiting. I was able to finish some clues quickly, before the next clue was released. Sometimes I didn't get the time to sew more than a handful of units between clues. I have to steal sewing time in bits and pieces around everything else and this helped me feel somewhat productive even when I didn't have many completed units to show for it.

Ok, my units are all counted and sewn, starting this morning with pressing. I've decided to keep the more yellow toned "reds", it's going to happen with batiks or hand-dyes that colors range. As it is, my dark "blue" is just dark, there are greens and purples in there too, as there are in the medium/skada.

I don't know if it will hold through the completion of the quilt, but this is my song while working on step 1.
Rocco Duluca/Colorful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_6A4G6nDxw

Ok, units are pressed and I'll take a break, go get the car tabs and then come back and go back to my other project :)

I'm having quite a bit of difficulty seeing a lot these well on my green mat, think I'm going to have to switch out with a white mat.

I scattered them on a white piece of batting to get the colors better, they look quite a bit different on the brown kraft paper I usually use for my photo backdrop. The "reds" range from yellow to brown. Some of those squares that look so black are typically dark purple.

I've put them in a reused fruit cake tin, seemed like an appropriate storage item.

Yes, I've also been following the 4 patches already done, trying to decide how to make the colors that I have go together. I went back and read her directions again in the Introduction, and the chips are ranges of colors. So perhaps I've been taking too literal. For example, "Framboise! (A fancy French word for a color family of fuscia to raspberry!)". So I need to go back and pull more of a range, instead of just that color. I always learn so much about color from doing these mystery quilts.

I do think if you choose to do the red/blue or red/raspberry, either way your quilt will be beautiful.

I had eye surgery on the 17th, still blurry here too (((suern)))

I settled on 30's fabrics and about 1/3 of the units. too cute to be legal.

Girlfriend, I think your fabrics are pretty great. The only thing I'd do is take those two mediums out of the dark, you can see them in the black and white picture, top right corner, not the edge but next to the edge. I think the dark with the light print on the bottom row that lights up in the B&W picture is fine in the darks.

You are keeping pretty tight to the paint chips, sure you can expand your colors a bit if it makes you happy. Go look at her assortments, I don't think most of them actually fit the paint chip. I love your aqua/refresh btw, and I think your reds are spot on!

Girlfriend - your colors are marvelous!!! I think you got it! :thumbup:

Bluebonnets (not bells) can range from almost navy at the bottom to light blue towards the top. When you look at a field of them they look lighter blue due to their white tips. But a single one has a wide variety of shades, so really any shade blue will work.
This is a pic I used in my Easter card a few years ago. The red is Indian paintbrush. But if you look at the bluebonnets you can see the variety of blues.
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Girlfriend, I've learned since my first mystery that Bonnie's paint chips are often quite different from her inspiration photos/descriptions and from her fabric choices. I think maybe with the paint chips, she is wanting to give a precise palette that works optimally, since people will be using it to choose fabrics and because not everyone has a comfort level or expertise in choosing colors. For example, suppose you took a chip that was closer to how you perceive the main bluebonnet color (it seems brighter and more purple to me than the dress blues chip). That replacement chip might not look quite as good with the other paint chips. But when the chips are translated to a range of color in fabrics, that precision doesn't matter so much. I think the other factor is probably contrast. The paint chips may represent the optimal value contrast for the pattern, but it works with a range of values, just like the color.

This year I was really trying to use stash and not spend too much on fabric. I had lots of the navy blues, so I decided to stick closely to the chips. If I had been prepared to buy a lot of fabric this year, I might have gone with the look of the photos rather than with the chips. I think your fabric choices are wonderful!

I love everyone’s colors :)