Working on a mystery

I have not worked on a mystery quilt for a long time.  The local shop had mystery quilts in the past, and did make a couple of them, but not for several years.  I have been lurking on Bonnie Hunter's blog for a while and thought that I would try her new mystery, Orca Bay.  The color scheme appealed to me as I had lots of red and blue scraps.

I started working on the blocks this week, having been out of town over the weekend. I had picked out the strings earlier, as most of the other scraps went to a quilting friend who is working on a scrap quilt and needed "new" scraps.  I also had some trouble finding my black scraps, so had to go to the fat quarter drawers there.

Here is my box of blue strings.  My red box is waiting for it's clue to arrive.

The first ten of my black and white quarter square triangles.

Now, where did my specialty ruler go?  I moved my sewing/quilting room this summer and still have not found everything.  This is what I did.  I cut a 3 1/4 square diagonally twice and then took one of the triangles and measured it.  I then marked on of my small square rulers with tape (the one I used is made to avoid leaving residue on the ruler).  I now have my own ruler to use to cut my triangles out of strips.  I'm still keeping my eyes open for my 'real' ruler though.

I decided  to try a couple of the string blocks as well.  I used tissue paper, as I had a lot left over from a fall shopping spree.  One of the clothing stores that I shop at wraps the articles that you purchase in tissue before placing them in your bag, so I had lots of tissue.  Here are the first two samples.

After reading a couple of the blogs that used techniques that resulted in multiple blocks constructed at one time, here is my attempt.  I used a longer piece of tissue and made 3 blocks at once and then divided them.

I think that could work well if I did more than one block at time.  I have a Janome that cuts the thread which is very helpful with the string blocks.  I should be able to get caught up with the clues this weekend.   

Getting back to blogging

Looking at all of the blogs that have been linked to the Bonnie Hunter Orca Bay Mystery has made me want to do some blogging again.  I don't do much that I think that anyone would find interesting and so I don't log on and blog much.  I have completed several quilts recently, some of which have been in the works for months.  It feels good to get the projects finished and really makes you want to get started with a new quilt.  I do need to get busy as I have a couple of gift quilts that need to be finished by the spring.

I did get one gift quilt out of the house over the Thanksgiving holiday.  I finished the quilt for my nephew and his wife and gave it to them when we were together over the weekend.  I hope they like it.  Most of the quilts that I give as gifts are scrappy.  This quilt was originally a kit for a double bed sized quilt, but I was able to squeeze a king sized quilt out of it.

This picture shows the quilt on a double bed.

My 88 year-old mom helped me get the last of the binding turned to the back and sewn on the quilt.