UFO Progress

I am working on another of my UFOs. This one is number 18, and is the result of a Quilters Newletter mystery that my quilting SIL and I started back in 2011. I set mine on point with sashing and cornerstones, and added quarter blocks in between the outside edges of the blocks. I still need to add the corner triangles. The plan is to add a border of the cornerstone fabric, then another border with the solid green. I should be able to finish it before next week. Should, of course, being the key word! Check out other quilters progress on their UFOs at Judy's Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

I decided to join Darlene at Quilts by Darlene for a mystery quilt. I really like the start of it, and my DH likes the honeycomb too. It needs two borders added, I'll do that before the next clue comes out on February 1st. Updated: My mistake - the next installment on this mystery will be February 8th.

Go on over to Judy's site to find many inspiring ideas on the design wall. I am planning to participate in Judy's mystery quilt also, but I don't have the fabric picked out for that one yet.

Design Wall Monday

Only one seam away from another flimsy! This is a mystery quilt offered by Leslie at The Crafty Unicorn Quilting. Leslie did a great job designing and presenting this mystery to keep us guessing on the final outcome. I love the way it ended up in columns. Check out Judy L's design wall Monday post for tons of inspiration.

Design Wall Monday

On my design floor for today are the blocks for the Quilters World mysyery quilt. I am going to set mine on point with a narrow sashing in between the blocks, and partial blocks along the outside edge. I like the partial blocks oriented so that the outside edge looks consistent. Visit Judy at Patchwork Times to see more inspirational ideas.

My dear SIL (who was my friend before she was my SIL!) came this weekend from NC to attend the East Cobb Quilters Guild Quilt Show. We were there for a good part of the day on Friday, enjoying all the beautiful quilts and supporting all the vendors! Both of us forgot a camara, so we ordered the dvd. We did jot down a few notes on quilts that appealed to us (I favor more traditional, she likes more art quilts). It was so great to spend time with her, and to have a fellow quilter to share ideas and fabric with! We plan on doing it again when the guild hosts their next show two years from now. On Saturday , we managed to visit three local quilt stores but we must have been on sensory overload, because we didn't buy much!

Friday flimsy

Okay, here is another mystery quilt! This is one of Bonnie Hunter's mysteries, Carolina Crossroads. I really like this pattern, lots of small pieces and interesting design. I do think that this quilt really cleaned out my pink fabrics! My pink stars are a bit too subtle, I think it would look better if they were more pronounced.

Friday flimsy

Today's flimsy was a New Year's mystery quilt offered by Planet Patchwork. My DD#3 helped me pick out the fabrics and even sewed a little on this one. We anxiously waited for each clue to be released. We weren't able to stay up with all the clues, but we still managed to get the top together in a couple of days. Hmmm. I do have some more bright fabrics that I was wondering what to do with...maybe another quilt like this is in order!

Friday Flimsy - Carolina Christmas

A year later, and I am calling this one done. This quilt was a mystery offered last year by Bonnie Hunter called Carolina Christmas. I fell behind on the steps , and then the final product was not floating my boat. I loved other people's version, but not mine! I decided to put it together as shown, and used my red rectangles as the border. My kids really like this one so I am glad to have it done. Now what to do with the other bits and pieces....

Judy L.'s mystery quilts

There is no sewing going on in my house lately! There has been some cleaning, organising, entertaining, and shopping, but no sewing. However, I do have two flimsies to show you - both of them mystery quilts offered by Judy Laquidara at Patchwork Times. The colors in the first quilt are so off, in real life they are very bright green with a bright yellow background. I gave this flimsy to a friend of my sister's for her guild to use for a donation quilt. I don't know what I will do with the second one, which is also fairly bright. I have quite a bit of bright fabrics that have aged long enough, and I am trying to get them out of my stash.

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2010

Welcome to the Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2010 and to my blog.

This is one of my favorite quilts, a oldie but goodie. It was offered as a mystery quilt by Judy Hopkins. The background fabric has little sayings all over the fabric, like 'a stitch in time saves nine' and 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. I have always enjoyed a good mystery book, and ever since I found out about mystery quilts I have not been able to resist them! I love the weight of this quilt and that it was hand quilted by my mother.

Friday Flimsy

I have had an unexpected free day last Monday, as DH was called into work early that morning. I spent my time putting together the blocks for a mystery quilt offered by Erik Homemade. I am not really pleased with my choice of sashing fabrics in this flimsy. I did not want to add the borders offered with the mystery, so I elected to leave them off. I will add this to the flimsy pile, along with the rest of the black and white fabric - there is enough there to use for binding.

Frustration!

I've been working on 4 different quilts in the past few months and I am frustrated with three of them! My Square-in-a-square quilt is not going together very well at all because I pressed all my blocks in the same direction during construction. I am debating cutting each square into 4 HSTs and making broken dishes blocks out of them. I haven't come up with a good border fabric for my churn dash swap quilt, nothing seems right to me yet. I was able to order a Jelly roll of Moda Yuletide fabrics from UpandAwayQuilts.com in NM and worked on this quilt,(bottom photo) but I am unhappy with some of the fabric placements. I want to add a piano keys border to this, but I may not have enough variety in the leftover fabrics to make that work. The last quilt I am working on is the Carolina Christmas mystery by Bonnie Hunter. I have put the other projects away for now so that I can concentrate on this one. For me, reducing the frustration level helps me to keep my quilting mojo in gear!
Retail therapy is also good for the quilting mojo! I ordered these lovely Chicken wire fabrics from Hollyhockquilts.com Etsy shop (middle photo)(the little bee fq was a bonus!) - I am going to use them for the back of a flimsy that has pinwheels in red and yellow chicken and egg fabrics! These other fabrics I bought from Sweet Home Quilt Co. in Conyers, Ga. (top photo)(Actually, the two on the right are from the remnant bin at JoAnn's.) I hadn't been to Sweet Home Quilt before, but as you can tell, I really liked it!

Mystery quilt

My SIL's quilt
My quilt

I love doing mystery quilts! I am currently working on Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas mystery. The first mystery quilt I ever did was by Judy Hopkins. It was presented as a series in the Lady's Patchwork Circle Magazine in late 1992, early 1993. My Mom hand quilted it for me, and I love using it! My SIL is also a quilter and I was trying to talk her into doing the mystery along with me (long distance as we live in different states). She came to visit in March of 1993 with her three children. Then, in one of those rare occurrences here in the south, we had a blizzard that shut down the city. She decided to join in the mystery, and we cut fabric all that Saturday. When she finished hers, she machine quilted it and gave it to my dd#2, who was supposed to be baptised on that Saturday. My daughter was baptised a few days later, after the roads cleared somewhat, and the entire trip has many fond memories for both of our families. My niece and nephews had been in the Philippines for several years after living in San Antonio, Texas and had never seen snow. They loved it! DD#1 had never seen snow before either, but as a two-year old she was not very impressed! You can tell from the pictures that my SIL put hers together differently from mine - that's what comes from getting the next step to the mystery over the phone! I just noticed that one of the background fabrics in this quilt is one of the background fabrics I am using in this latest mystery-maybe this will be the end of it!