I’ll be fine just need my gallbladder yanked. I have a thread here from summer where the members scared me straight, but I’ve put if off dangerously too long because I was away.
iceBlossom I’m so glad you’ve got your water back!

2 sleeps to kick off!

Hoping you start to feel better soon, KalamaQuilts. Also, I hope your surgery goes smoothly. My niece just had her gallbladder removed today.

Welcome. Wildyard! Pretty fabrics.

Iceblossom: Wahoo to your new water heater! Hopefully, the sensor comes in for your car soon.

Finally got my fabrics picked out, looking forward to Friday morning ��

[ATTACH=CONFIG]620250[/ATTACH]

I didn't realize it had started yet. Thanks for mentioning it.

It's fun to see everyone's fabric choices! Bonnie Hunter loves to go scrappy-- yet for her own choice of green she's using only one fabric instead of scrappy greens. I thought that was interesting she's making that a constant fabric.

Pamela, don't let others worry you into not sharing your progress! Lots of pictures and chatting about what each person is doing is what makes this thread fun to read. :-) Make it about sharing a hobby and enjoying friends! :-)

KalamaQuilts well said and a good reminder for all of us. Best wishes on your surgery.
Linda you have a wonderful assortment of fabrics. Looking forward to getting started and viewing everyone's progress on each of the clues. Happy Thanksgiving and so thankful for Bonnie and everyone in this group.

I have a backup plan, these colors go better with my house. I’ll wait to see how the [ATTACH=CONFIG]620288[/ATTACH]colors are put together.

Phew, I think I've caught up on this thread! It's a fast mover, lol.

So many beautiful fabrics selected by all. Definitely one of my favorite things about the mystery is seeing how all of the different choices work out. Sometimes I change out colors, but this year I am going with the suggested colors.

Kalamaquilts, you have explained the "rules" requirement well. Human nature to push, just a wee bit here and a little there, until the need to clamp down arises.

Kalama - I hope your surgery goes well and that you are up and about in no time. I felt so much better after mine was removed, I went back to work in a week and had no problems. May the same be true for you!

You and me both!!! Greatly said Kalama!!! I love the mysteries...

Wildyard, your fabrics look terrific! Glad you are joining us. I think you will enjoy it. Did you have as much trouble as I did finding light aqua fabrics? That one really stumped me. I hope to get a photo posted of my selections before Friday. I have trouble figuring out how to transfer from my phone to my computer. It seems I always need help when that comes up.

Leslie

I am a newer quilter and have not participated in a mystery quilt. I think I have decided to dive in. What pushed me over the line is Kamalaquilts comment about her friend’s improved piecing, I am looking to take it to the next level and maybe this will help. I don’t have a large stash and have been working diligently to reduce what I have and so I will need to purchase at least half of the required fabric....maybe I will find some Black Friday deals that work for me. The attached picture is of a duvet cover I own. I have been planning on making a quilt using this colour scheme for some time and was struck by the similarities with BH’s palate. My plan is to switch out aquas for pink, does anyone see a problem with that? I would like to play along as the clues are revealed but have a few Christmas gifts I need to get quilted and am not sure about time. My second question is can folks here give me a broad estimate of how many
hours per week are involved? I realize skill levels vary, hence the ‘broad’.

��[ATTACH=CONFIG]620309[/ATTACH]

Improvisation is good, especially with a mystery! I'm curious about your comment that Bonnie suggested making 12 of each step. I've read the instructions and didn't seen that. For those wanting a smaller quilt she suggests making 1/2 the units. Since she often works in hundreds of units, I can't see making 12 will end up with enough to make even a table topper.

Love that mix of colors Catti, would you use black as the constant?
Depending on whether you just make 12 units of each clue, or 160 of each unit for a king size is where the time comes in.
The real time comes after the reveal and the assembly begins for me.
But if I had to guess based on faulty memory, I'd say 4-8 hours a week.
And it also depends on how organized :) Once I've chosen my fabric I starch and press about a foot of each, and accordian fold the balance, stack with the pressed bits smooth and ready to be chosen. But I have a nice big cutting table. So that has to count as time too, but I don't...
Is the sewing area ready to sit down and sew once the cutting is done?
You get the idea...does your work day begin when you get up, or when you sit down behind your desk or get on the forklift?
But I'd say 4-8 hours a week ;)

The suggestion of 12 units was for those who were not planning to make all the units for a single step—just to become comfortable with the construction of that unit. Then, as time permits, go back and complete the clue.

Just one more day til the fun starts! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Cattitude, doing a mystery project can be daunting. But yes, our skills can improve and we are paying attention since we don't know the outcome. For those of us who have been solo quilters, it can be quite fun to do a sew along.

I love your inspiration fabric. I'd say go ahead and switch out the aqua to pink if it makes you happier. Worst thing is that you don't really like the outcome, but hey -- you don't know what the outcome is supposed to be so it's not your fault. Sometimes the fabric selections of the participants show secondary designs that didn't come out in the designed version.

I know one of the things I've learned from mysteries and exchanges is that I don't have to be so control freaky (I still am but I don't have to be...). It's a good thing to learn.

Change my fabric one last time. I went with some fabrics from both fabric groups. I’m walking fabric now. No more fabric changes for me. I’m going withwhat I have (at least until tomorrow). LOL! last year I switched out 2 fabrics after the reveal. I really liked my changes from last year.

What time does the mystery go online tomorrow? Happy Thanksgiving!

I can’t wait to return home and shop my stash...I’ll be running a bit behind but it has been an amazing month in California with my kids and new grandbaby.

Thank you Iceblossom for mailing me the color cards. I love seeing what everyone is pulling for fabric for this project.

Usually about 9:00 a.m.

I ironed and started my fabric this afternoon! I'm all ready! :thumbup: And my new Janome is a ! Oh my gosh, I am in love.

Now to finish one more top! I have it webbed, now just need to sew the rows. I'm so thankfully for Bonnie teaching me this method to putting together a top!

Jmoore: Congratulations on the new grandbaby.

_________________
Don't know if this is the correct way or the best way, Audsgirl, but what I do is email the photo to myself. Open on my computer, resize to make it acceptable for the QB and upload and Ta-Da we will be able to see your fabric selections.

I am excited to join in! I can't start till Sunday as I have company till then, but I will look in tomorrow just to read the clue.
I am lucky to now have a great stash of scraps due to the generosity of some board members and other quilters who are so supportive of my mission in making comfort quilts. I had all these fabrics in my scrap drawers, which I keep sorted by color. I also am trying to sort my strings by color, but that is much harder to keep up with. LOL

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2019...ry-part-1.html

easy peasey, as most first clues are. This is where you fine tune your seams for that perfect finished size.

One of the things I learned from Bonnie the first year, a why didn't I recognize this idea before, was
run the sets through the machine all oriented the same direction. Then if twirling seams are involved or not, the seams always nest nicely. and the under seams are down so they don't get flipped by the feed dogs. A simple basic I 'should' have recognized in 1970.

I note that last edit was at 4:19 am :) I'm not up for the mystery particularly, as an insomniac I consider it a successful night of sleep if I make it to 3 AM! We are actually going shopping today, probably the first time in 25-30 years! My laptop has died, dishwasher on last leg, my sewing lamp is in the garbage bin, and I need a towel rack. I can do this! But not till 9 AM, it won't be me you'll be reading about crushed against the doors somewhere ;)

Now I'm going upstairs to actually pick fabric.
For our member who wondered how to keep the fabrics straight, I make a cheat sheet by
stapling the paint chips to a sheet of paper (or use color crayons etc)
then I cut a swatch from the colors I'm actually using and tape that to the color chip.
That helps avoid the confusion my broken brain may get up to ;)

Ok! I'm up in the middle of the night because of my sleep issues but am about to go back to bed, so won't be starting this for hours yet.

With this first hint/step, it would be a good way for me to practice pressing to the sides, she gives such nice instructions, pictures and details but I'm going to keep with my smaller stitch and pressing seams open. One of the reasons I really like sew alongs instead of exchanges.

Also very happy that I will be able to use my favorite of the hand dyes that was proving problematic. It wasn't quite one color group or another, it was just exactly in-between and now it's going in.

Thank you Kalama. I went to her website and didn't see it posted, so am grateful there are early birds on this forum to help us along. It's nice to start with an easy step and not too many units to be assembled this first week.

Question. I just bought yardage. So do I need to make sure the light blue is in the top left and the dark blue is bottom right.or can I mix them all up?
Thank you
Kathryn

I've printed out the directions and will be saving them for later. I had planned on participating - but that was before DH and I found a house and now we're moving in a month so I've got to get packing!

Kathryn,

Recheck her post. She shows pictures of the layout and explains the "why" of it.

How exciting! Good luck with your move! Hope it has room for more sewing! :)

Took me royally messing it up to figure this spin thing out! :thumbdown::D

I bought yardage too. That's a good question.

I feel confident that we need to use some of each of the blues. But I also think it wouldn't matter which blue was on top and which blue was on the bottom, because we could rotate the units when we do the final placement. That's what the 'seam spinning' will allow us to do. So feeding the unit in with the 'blue leading' is really important.

Anyone else think I'm on the right track?

It is the beginning. So excited to see the first clues. Now back to routine housework, I have it saved and printed off to do.

that is correct Kristi.
What Janome did you buy? I've been a New Home/Janome girl since I was 15 and bought a used one from a neighbor.

I've chosen 30's fabric, always so cheerful. Have a pile of blue and pinks cut. I love making little 4 patches.

As an example of how you can make the mystery, and still not make it :)
This is Ringo Lake, https://quiltville.com/shop.html#!/O...egory=13038426
I made all the units along with everyone else, only in my own colors, but when it came time for the reveal and I went to my working wall to put it together, I changed everything. So I call it Not Ringo Lake. and I love it, and still had my 'comfort food' of making the mystery.

Did you ever see two more different quilts? Yet it is all the same units.

that small quilt on the left is made from mystery leftovers, I think Celtic Solstice and the Illusion one

KalamaQ, shopping on Black Friday will be an adventure!I hope you find just what you need.

Macybaby, congratulations on finding a house. You will have a busy month!

My reading is that the use of dark or light blue is arbitrary, and there might not even be a dark and a light blue in every unit, so no need to worry about placement.

It looks like some of Bonnie’s blocks are light and dark, some both light, some both dark.

I'm also using yardage and am doing half of them with both blues, and the rest with a single blue -- see my pic below. At first I thought about doing both light and dark blues in every block but then thought that might be too matchy-matchy for Bonnie's design.