It's a mystery no more!

Hi Everyone!

I finished Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune Mystery last night!  Here's what my version looks like:

In the directions, Bonnie gave the option of doing the oranges as string-pieced or solid pieces.  I chose to do the solids and I'm very happy with my choice!  That choice also made a difference in the way my borders were pieced.  The neutrals in my borders ended up being long rectangles rather than extremely scrappy.  Here's a close up of my non-pieced oranges and border neutrals:

I would never have thought to use these colors together on my own!  I'm thrilled with the result, though!

Now I get to cross this off my 2019 Finish It Up Challenge list!

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Quilt top finish

Whew!  I finished a quilt top (aka a "flimsy") last night.  It's a zipper or cobblestone quilt, though zipper seems to be the preferred name.

Of course, with any form of quilt, a cat has to get involved.  Say "hi" to Spooky.  ;-)

Most of the time, you will see this quilt pattern use whites for the squares.  I happened to have a lot of black squares so I used them instead.

The squares are 2" (1½" finished) and the bricks (rectangles) are 2" x 3½" (1½" x 3" finished).  There are 20 square/brick sets across the width and 61 rows.  Finished size of the top is 90" x 91½".

I'm thinking that I won't put on any borders and I'll bind it with a black & white binding.  That will probably be awhile from now.  I've got so many flimsies that I need to layer, quilt, and bind before this one.

I wanted to get this one finished and off my design wall so that I'd have room to work on Bonnie Hunter's upcoming mystery.  For that, you can find information at Quiltville.  She has the fabric requirements posted and the first step in the mystery will be posted on Black Friday, November 23rd.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Floral Finesse - another page finished

Whew!  I thought I'd never finish this page!  Of course, I was distracted by the quilts I've been working on.

I've never been so eager to make quilts as I have since last July.  The only down side to that is my cross stitching has suffered from neglect.  The up side is I've finished 4 quilt tops (just the tops, so far) since last Summer.

Yesterday, I sat down and concentrated on finishing my current page on Floral Finesse.  I had all the cross stitching done, I just needed to finish the backstitching.  I tend to backstitch as I go, so thankfully, there wasn't much to do.

Here it is:

I finished this in the early afternoon and then switched to...a quilt top.  See!  I don't know why, but I've definitely been bitten by the quilting bug.

I have all of the individual blocks done, all 1,260 of them.  See?

I'm going to just take them out of the basket randomly.  The only thing I will check is that I don't use identical fabrics back to back.  I've heard this quilt referred to as a zipper quilt or a cobblestone quilt.

These are simply dark (black, navy, deep purple) 2" squares sewn onto light-ish 2" x 3½" bricks.  They'll all face the same way, square/brick, as I sew them into rows.  The rows will be 20 blocks wide, or 90" finished.  When I assemble the rows into the quilt, every other row will be flipped.  In other words, row 1 will start with a brick, row 2 will start with a square, row 3 will be a brick, and so on.

Here are the first 5 rows.  Each row is complete but I haven't sewn the rows together yet.  I am going to wait until all the rows are done so that I can keep identical fabrics away from each other.

I did switch back to cross stitching on God Speed (HAED) after I'd gotten this much done but I didn't take a photo.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

2018 FIU Challenge Update

Hello!

I have progress on my list!  It's not much...yet, but it is better than nothing.

• Stitch a design for the candlescreen that I have
• Finish hand-quilting the Bullseye Quilt
• Finish the log cabin star wall hanging
• Start hand-quilting my grand aunt's grandmother's flower garden quilt top
• Clean up the nook area in my sewing room - made a start, barely
• Finish the mystery quilt top I've started - finished 3 February
• Clean and re-frame my hummingbirds cross stitch
• Post all the stuff I have waiting to be listed in my Etsy shop
• Clean up my scrapbooking area
• Make a start on archival scanning of all my family photographs
• Get my printed recipes put into my recipe software (Living Cookbook)

Here's a photo of the finished quilt top:

This was Bonnie Hunter's On Ringo Lake mystery.  It's the first of her mysteries that I've done.  I used her suggested colors because they were out of my comfort zone and it was a way to expand my personal horizons...so to speak.  ;-)

As a mystery quilt, this has been retired.  However, she does have the pattern available for purchase on her website (see link above).

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Finish It Up Challenge

I know I haven't been doing regular updates on this, but until lately, I haven't been really working on it.

Well, that's changed a bit.  I've actually finished another item on the list!

My Happy Blocks* quilt top is all put together!  Here it is:

I couldn't get a photo of the whole top because my cutting table is in the way.  The top is 7 blocks x 7 blocks.  Each block measures 6" finished.  The overall quilt should finish at 66" square.

* How Happy Blocks work.  I have only done these as a swap.  You could do them yourself but it kind of eliminates part of the "happy" that come from swapping.  I sent 6, 4½" squares of fabric to each swap participant.  In this case, they were random pinks and purples.  Each person kept 1 of the squares for themselves.  They then put 2½" borders on each remaining fabric square and mailed the completed blocks back to me.  Of course, I was doing the same for them.  I did request that the borders be maroon/burgundy.

Now here's the part that wasn't "normal".  I took the Happy Blocks that I got back and whacked them on the diagonal.  I then paired a pink half and a purple half to make the new blocks.  That's why they finished so much smaller than you'd expect from the original dimensions.

Here's my updated FIU list:

• Put all my loose floss on bobbins finished January 27th with new purchases done February 3rd
• Stitch a design for the candlescreen that I have
• Assemble my Happy Blocks quilt top finished 12 August
• Assemble my Crumbs quilt top
• Finish hand-quilting the Bullseye Quilt
• Finish the Log Cabin Star wallhanging
• Hand-quilt at least 10 blocks on my Christmas Strings quilt
• Finish my Through the Storm cross stitch as a free-standing block  finished 30 July
• Finish my green Temari ball
• Finish 1 of my Santa kits (not cross stitch)
• Make bookcases for my sewing room
• Decorate wooden "S" for my sewing room

Well, that's all for this update.  Hopefully, I'll have at least one more done soon.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy