Arrows and small mystery

I finished four arrow blocks for the February drawing for Block Lotto. I love these blocks! The first one was a little tricky to make, because the sizes seemed to be a little off, but once I figured out how to trim the pieces I had no trouble.

I've been working since November on Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion mystery quilt, and found it was taking more time than I've got to spare these days, so I decided to use what I'd already sewn to make a smaller version of the quilt as she designed it. I think it's pretty cute as a small quilt! My husband said he likes it very much, and that it reminds him of sailing flags. I'm not sure I see it, but I'm not much of a sailor either.

Funny, now that I see these photos together I realize that I they're the same colors! If I win the arrows maybe I should add them to the edge of the mystery quilt?

That's all for now. I hope my next post will show some progress on the quilt-as-you-go project I've had on the back burner.

Celtic Solstice, week 5

This week we incorporated the tiny squares we'd make a couple of weeks ago into a larger unit, with more triangles. I'm getting the feeling that Bonnie really loves working with tiny triangles...or at least she loves having her mystery quilters work with tiny triangles!

So far, so good. More next week.

Celtic Solstice Mystery, Week 3

We're making tiny pinwheels this week. Since I'm making the small version of the quilt, I'll need to make 25 pinwheels, and make an extra 100 units for some other use in quilt. So far, so good. More next week!

Week 2, Celtic Solstice

Here are a few units for week 2---my colors are light/bright green, gold and neutral. These are fun---I can't wait to see how they're going work in the final quilt design. The mystery deepens!

Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery

I thought I'd made up my mind NOT to make Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this year....too busy, need to finish the medallion quilt I'd started for a show in the spring, blah, blah, blah.....but in the end I couldn't resist. This will be my 3rd Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  I've had such a great time making the others that I figured, why not? Life's short. Grab the fun when you can.

She's calling it the Celtic Solstice Mystery---if you want to check out the directions click on the button to the right.

Since I hadn't collected fabric in advance, I had to move fast yesterday when the first clue came out. After a quick look at my stash and a trip to Quilter's Attic in Pine Bush, NY I had what I needed to get started on a new Christmas quilt. It's always a little risky to deviate from the colors Bonnie has chosen, but I think I'm on pretty safe ground here with Christmas colors. We'll see!

While I was at the quilt shop yesterday I also purchased the Tri Recs rulers Bonnie's using for this project. I'm so glad I did. It's really speeding up the process, and I feel like my units are coming out much truer to size than they have in the past. The technology and methodology that have been developed to help quilters is pretty incredible when you think about it.

That's all for now. More next week.

Time for a mystery quilt!

Actually, I DO NOT have time to be making a mystery quilt, but I've been checking in on Bonnie Hunter's blog Quiltville every now and then and noticed that she just happened to be starting a new mystery quilt one of the days I clicked on her site. It's called the Orca Bay Mystery. Since Bonnie seems to be all about using up scraps, and I've got more scraps than I know what to do with, I figured I can justify my involvement. So I started right in. Here's a photo of the first units she's asked us to make, from black and white fabrics.

If I remember correctly, we're supposed to make 230 or so of these little units (they measure 2 1/2 inches) but the instructions said to just get started, and not to worry if you didn't get all of them finished before the next directions are published on Friday.

That said, I'm determined not to let my current project, the Scrappy Trip, become another UFO. So I'm working on both quilts at the same time. I've got all of the large blocks for the Scrappy Trip finished, and I'm now creating a border for it that I hope will read as a zig-zag line when it's done. Here's a photo of where it stands now:

I want the border to be separated from the main part of the quilt by a strip of fabric---I was thinking of even using white, or maybe a pale yellow. I'll see what looks best when I'm ready to start sewing it all together.