Mystery Time Again

Time to re-activate the blog for the Bonnie Hunter 2013 Mystery, Celtic Solstice.  I did manage to get last years mystery done and was able to have it in the guild quilt show this spring.  Still finishing up the Quiltmaker's Mystery.

I still have one more border to put on that quilt, but needed something to show for the Monday link-up.  Here is a picture of the two block that I have done.  Ended up cutting eight block to make but decided to make just 2 to use the rulers and check out my seam width.  Everything appears to be working well.  I am enjoying everyone's pictures and blog posts!

Now ready to go for tomorrow's clue.

The rulers make cutting the pieces easy and accurate and with a correct size seam the block turn out a perfect 3 1/2 inch size.

Check out all the links  http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2013/12/celtic-solstice-mystery-monday-link-up-1.html

Slowly Finishing Easy Street

Easy Street is starting to come together!  Of course, I always have to look for the longest and the hardest way to get to the end, and this time is no different.  I got behind on the clues and so I have been making my quilt block by block instead making all of the blocks and putting them together.  Doing this has shown me several things about the construction of the block that may be of help to the folks who were waiting to make the quilt later or have not finished yet.

Construction tips for Easy Street.
1.  For the obsessive among us (yes, me too.) the seams will nest better if you make a few of the gray and white foursies twist the other way.  You will need 4 of the reverse twist four patch blocks for each B block and 2 for each setting triangle.  It will be obvious where they are to go when you lay out the block.  I had kept a few of the four patches back to use as leaders and enders so I was able to make a few of the blocks with the reverse twist.

2.  When pressing and during construction, press toward the green.  This will allow the seams to nest better and will give you crisper corners.  I used Bonnie's color scheme, so if you have changed the colors just substitute your colors.   Be aware that you may have to un-twist some of the four patches and make the seam lay all the same way in order to get the proper fit.

3.  I pressed the seams on the A blocks up and the B blocks down and they fit together nicely.

4.  Watch the direction of the four patch blocks closely!  I think that I wasted more thread un-sewing than I saved by chain piecing.  :-(     Oh well, that is part of the process.

The quilt went traveling as well.  I had a week off and spent part of it with my son, daughter-in-law, grandson and daughter during the first part of the week and the last part of the week with my other daughter.  And I did get some sewing done!

Here are some pictures of the still not completely completed quilt top.  I still have not picked out a border fabric, but I have the backing ready to prepare.  I picked it up on sale and it is the apple green color!

I just want to thank Bonnie for all of the fun with the mystery and tell everyone how much fun it has been seeing every one's progress on their quilts.  There are a lot of very talented people out there in the blogosphere  that quilt!  Keep up the good work!

One corner is done! (natural light)

More of the quilt is done. ( Incandescent light)

It is hard to get much sewing done when there is a baby to play with!

  It's a tough job, but Grandma's got to do it, right?

Waiting until the last minute!

Decided that I had better get something on the blog or it would be too late to make the link for this week.  I did not get much done on Clue 4 of Easy Street, as I had many other thing to do this week.  Last minute sewing for Christmas and such as that.

I did get a few of the purple and turquoise geese made and a few of the 3 1/2 inch green blocks cut for demonstration purposes.

No idea where I got the green with the little lavender sprig print, but I think that it will help to tie the colors together.

Another reason that I didn't get much sewing on the mystery is this little quilt.  When I finished with clue 3, I was in a sewing mood and pulled something off the the shelf to complete.  I was determined that I would finish this project that I picked up on a shop hop in 2005!

I miss-cut several times, it was a good thing that there was extra fabric in the kit.  This should make a cute table topper as it is only about 38 inches square.  Anyway off to get this in with all of the posts in Bonnie's link for Clue 4 of Easy Street mystery!

Bury the Lede

Well, the weekend was rather productive, but the week was pretty much a total loss.  Didn't get much done as I had a horrible cough and laryngitis that lasted all week.  It took a day and one-half of resting my voice on Saturday and today to get back to something that sounds like normal.

I didn't get all of the part 2 geese done for Easy Street before the 3rd clue came out on Friday.  So I did have some catch-up to do.  Luckily, Bonnie had a couple of sessions of Quilt Cam this weekend, so I had time to get caught up.  I finished up the purple geese and then started on the new blocks so now, I'm all caught up with the clues.  Am waiting to cut the green squares until I know how they will be used.  Then I can chose the 'right' green.

I ended up not using a couple of the aqua blue/turquoise fabrics that I had chosen because they looked to light.  My colors for this group are very saturated and the lighter ones would just have washed out too much.  Anyway, here at the Part 3 blocks of Easy Street in all their glory!

I was playing around with the blocks and the rectangles that we had cut previously, anyway these are laid out on the 'outback' part of my Koala Outback Jr. sewing table.  The green thing at the top of the picture is the box that the mystery pieces live in until they become a quilt.  Here they are all arranged in their separate compartments.

The notebook has the clues for this year and from last year's quilt, Orca Bay.  Now comes the buried part.  I said that I was finishing that quilt in last weeks linked post and did get it done to take to my guild meeting on Thursday.  I am a member of the Lake Area Quilters Guild.  I would like to thank the ladies who helped me get the picture of my quilt!  I didn't have anyplace to hang it for photos.

You don't really get the full effect of the amount of movement in this quilt until you get a chance to step back and take a look at it.  I really like the red and blue.  I decided to add the black border to make it a little bigger to fit the bed that will be graced with this quilt.  Penny Barnes of The Quilted Forest did the machine quilting for me, using a variegated thread.  This is a freehand design.  The red and blue print that you see is the fabric on the back of the quilt.

I was quite pleased with the finished product and if Easy Street is as good (and I am sure that it will be) I will be a happy camper.  

We did get a little snow today, none of which stuck around very long.  It did look quite impressive for a while. This is the tree in the yard across the street from my front door, taken this afternoon.

Happily, it did not snow like this for very long!  

Looking forward to seeing all of the progress on the Link-up on Monday!  It is so much fun to see what everyone is doing!

Happy quilting!

Purple, Purple. Where is the Purple?

I was up early to see about the clue for Easy Street.  Picked up the iPad from the nightstand and looked up the new clue!  I tried to print is out before I realized that I had unplugged the wireless printer when I was decorating for Christmas.  Hop out of bed to plug in the printer and get that clue on paper!  Unfortunately, then I had to get ready to go to work.  I turned out to be an interesting day, as I had lost most of my voice.  I did manage to croak my way through the day with a minimum of times repeating myself because people could not understand what I was saying.

I had not gone looking for the purple after the initial information about the colors in the quilt.  I thought that I would have enough, as I had some left from a project from several years ago.  One of my son's friends was getting married and wanted a quilt with black, tan and a little purple!  My first thought was - what a color combo.  I usually make scrappy quilts for gifts, so off I go to get the colors.  I had blacks left over from that project, but could not find them for last year's Orca Bay.  Well, found them this year!  A day late and a dollar short, as always.  I was determined that I was going to find those purples this year! And I did!

Here is a picture of the original project.  This is a smaller copy of the queen sized quilt that I made from blocks that I put away so well, I could not find them for the queen quilt. (Am I sensing a theme here???)

The pattern is Rocky Road to Dublin and I think that it looks quite nice, even if I had a few thoughts about the combination of colors!

Off to look for the purples!  I finally found the strips that I knew that I had in the 3 inch bin.  It hurt just a little to lose that inch, but I can use it in some string piecing someday.

Here at the strips, both 2 inch and 3 inch.  I think purple give such a rich look to any quilt.

I did get about 20 of the flying geese done and quite a few more cut out, but I did not have much time for sewing this weekend as I went to see my daughter for her birthday and also to see this little guy

I think that he is a good excuse for not having all my flying geese done!  What do you think?

Here are the geese that are done and the ones that are cut and ready to go!  Hope I will get a chance to sew a little here and there this week and get them finished up.  If not, then they wait for another day!

I have really enjoyed reading all of the blog posts from all over the world!  Last week I was in the first 50 and this week I didn't make the first 150, oh well.  Better 'late' than never.  I hope to have my Orca Bay quilt finished for the Monday Link-up next week.

Happy sewing, everyone!

Decorating for Christmas

Decorating for Christmas took on a whole new twist this year, with the redecorating of the living room/dining room over the past year.  Started with new windows (boy, have they made a difference in the heating bill) followed by a new gas fireplace insert.  Then new carpeting, out with the 20 year old stuff!  New furniture was next.  Still need to get some sort of window treatments, haven't seen anything that just hits me right.  Also, still waiting for the entertainment center.  The one in the picture is a temporary one from IKEA.  It is nice, but not quite big enough for the record player that I have and want to use.  Anyway, it does look nice and the new one will be very similar in color and style.

So, can't put the tree where it used to be, no room there.  Couch is in the way.  Can't put the Santa collection by the fireplace, too hot now with the new insert.  The tree is 9 feet tall, so the only place that it will fit now is between the fireplace and the wall and the Santa's will go on the sofa table.

The santas are a story in themselves.  When I was in my residency in Nebraska, I purchased the first one of my tall Santa collection at our church bazaar.  It was followed closely by a second tall Santa that I received as a thank you gift.  I took that as a sign, need to collect tall Santas.  I have added a new one every year, sometimes more than one, but I have to slow down now as I have a bunch.  I am looking for ones that have interesting details or are a unique color.

Anyway, here is the finished product for the living room.  Pictures of the dining area to follow as soon as it is finished!

As you can see, there is not much room for any more Santas.  That is of course, unless they are small.  A couple of short Santas made it into the collection, but they were gifts.

The quilt on the wall is actually my daughter's, but it's here and she's not so I'm using it because it has a hanging sleeve.  I do have another one that I can put there when she decides that she want this one back!

All in all, the room looks rather festive, I think.  I hope to spend some evening time enjoying it!  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Quiltville Mystery Time Again!

Well, another year has swept past and it is time again for Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery.  She is calling this year's quilt Easy Street.  Bonnie's initial information about the color of the fabrics and the amount that you need is in this post.  The first clue came out on Black Friday, so as soon as I was up, I printed it out.  I have a new printer that does a very nice job of doing two sided printing and so I will be using that and cutting down on the amount of paper this year!

I did need to make a shopping run to the local quilt shop, The Quilted Forest.  The shop was featured in the Better Homes and Gardens Patchwork and Quilting Quilt Sampler this fall!!  I had used up most all of my black on white prints in the Orca Bay quilt that was the mystery last year.  Oddly enough, although I didn't think that I would find much apple green called for in the pattern, I did find quite a pile from my scraps and from fat quarters.  Who'd a thunk it, I don't recall making much of anything with that color but seemed to be collecting it.

Back to the sewing room to work on the four patches called for in the first clue.  The picture shows the four patches grouped into four groups.  I had a very few patches of some of the black and white prints and in order to keep them from all showing up in the same place in the quilt, I split them up.  Now there will be a few patches of the 'rare' prints in each quadrant of the quilt.

I saved about 16 of the squares back to use as leaders and enders for the rest of the clues.  The stacks of blocks are held together with a long pin with a small piece of eraser on the point of the pin.  Quick and easy way to hold them all together!

I have been looking at other blogs and it looks like a lot of people are changing the colors this year.  I decided to stay with the original color suggestions, mainly because it a little outside the box for me.  Thought that I would stick with the 'retro' color scheme (that's what my daughter called it) and run with it.

 After getting all the four patches together, I had some time left, so decided to work on a couple of Christmas presents.

My daughter has a 1950's bungalow and I thought that these would look great in her kitchen.  If you are reading this dear, try to act surprised when you open the box on Christmas!  That yellow is a real eye popper.

I am looking forward to the Monday link-up to see what everyone is doing with their quilts.  Happy sewing, everyone!