On Ringo Lake 2017 Quiltville Mystery

The 2017 Quiltville Mystery "On Ringo Lake" designed by Bonnie Hunter began the day after Thanksgiving with clue #1. I didn't change the colors she used I just intensified them.

9 patch blocks was clue #1.

Orange flying geese was clue #2.

Clue #3 had a different scale of unit. These were destined to be sashing pieces but I made them into the outside border on my quilt.

Clue #4 was the aqua square plus 2 brown triangles.

Clue #6 added the orange triangle to make it square.

Clue #5 was brown flying geese.

In clue #7  we sewed the orange and brown geese together in pairs.

Clue #8 was assembling the blocks using the previous clues.

Clue #9 was the reveal on the setting. This was where I jumped ship and did my own thing with the setting. I used her sashing units and sewed them together to make this cool zig zag for the outside border. I used a narrow brown sashing fabric cut 1" wide to frame the blocks and help with the bulky seam joints.

I only used half of the blocks and did a straight setting 5 x 5 plus the border. My quilt top finished at 57"x57" but after quilting and washing it was 54" x 54".

This is Bonnie Hunter's "On Ringo Lake" quilt setting.

I like the intense oranges and browns in this quilt. It is almost 100% batiks.

( I did add one gecko face for fun.)

I'm not sure what I'll do with the other half of the blocks yet.

Mystery Link to Quiltville.

Link to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Plaid Strings UFO Finished

Several years ago I started this plaid quilt which was a Bonnie Hunter design called The Quilt That Love Built. I used yellow pages as the paper foundation to sew the plaid blocks. Once all 81 blocks were done I worked on the sashing units. I had all but 30 finished when I packed it away in a UFO box. This fall when my quilt bee had a mini quilt retreat, I took this UFO to work on when my On Ringo Lake (Bonnie Hunter 2017 Quiltville Mystery quilt) clue was done.

All plaid fabrics!

Here are all the units for the 100 9 Patch posts. One thing I've learned from doing the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts each fall is that I can sew an enormous amount of units in a short amount of time if I keep at it.

When looking for backing fabric I found this 108" wide red that I already had!

I assembled the quilt quickly and quilted it on a snowy day in early December.

All done with binding too!!

Before washing it was 84" x 84".

I love how it looks woven. 

My mom is a weaver so she was the recipient of the quilt this Christmas.

Plaid Strings finished! 

The quilt on the quilt rack in the corner is Celtic Solstice the 2013 Quiltville Mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter. 

OMG! Is Finished!!

My goal was to finish this quilt by early November...

Victory is mine! It's done. The pieced center part of my quilt has 72 Shoo Fly blocks and 71 Double 9 Patch blocks. The original pattern "Omigosh!" by Susan H Garman is larger with over 100 of each block. My finished quilt is 60" x 70".

This is the pattern I used. Next step was to choose border fabrics.

These were all possibilities for the border but I didn't choose any of them for various reasons. (Although I did like the yellow with a narrow red accent, lower right.)

I chose to use an aqua print with a cream accent stripe for the border.

One reason for choosing these was the fact that I had yardage of both so I could use them for the back too! I pieced the backing and added a lovely purple too.

The quilt was spray basted and ready to quilt on Halloween.

Haha Mummy thread from King Tut!!

My old faithful Bernina 1530 is sometimes temperamental and won't sew the lefthand stitches of the wavy line so I stopped and quilted it on my newer Bernina. I left these stitches in the quilt because I love my old machine and don't fault her for skipped stitches. She sewed the bulk of the quilt already!

Snap Chats I sent on Halloween included this one while I was adding the borders.

I finished the quilt on Thursday November 2nd. I used the purple for the binding.

I love the bright orange Sassafras tree in the background. It earns it's place in our yard by it's gorgeous fall colors each year.

The pattern looks complicated but the directions are clear and the method is easy.

Final size is 60" x 70".

For my gecko followers...yes! there is one fussy cut square!

Link to Finish it Friday.

Omigosh! in Batiks

Next project started is this Omigosh! quilt designed by Susan H Garman. I'm using all fabrics from my stash so I rummaged around and found some fun things.

This roll of Jelly Bean Batiks by Laundry Basket Quilts is from 2014 and the 5 yards of white may be older than that! Good thing fabric doesn't have a shelf life!!

One inch strips sewn together to make tiny 4 patch squares.

This is just some of the plethora of units I needed to make the 4 patches.

These baskets contain pieces to make the tiny 9 patches.

I made loads of these tiny 9 patches while on vacation. These finish at 1 1/2"!

I made some into the double 9 patch blocks to see what it would look like.

To finish the 4 patch blocks there must be extra white all around it. I figured out a way to cut the excess "wing tips" off BEFORE sewing it to the 4 patch. 

The reason for that is so I could easily chain piece the units.

This is a sneak peek of what my finished blocks will look like. These blocks are 4 1/2" finished.

These are the 4 patch units for the Shoo Fly blocks. ALL of these need to be trimmed to 2" square. I've got plenty left to do but my goal is to finish this quilt by early November.

Birthday Color Books

We've been invited to a birthday party for the 2 little girls next door. They both turn 1 this fall. Their birthdays are 2 week apart so the party is right between. I pulled out my pattern for Alyssa's Color Book and made  books for Lily and Taliyah.

Alyssa's Color Book pattern was from 2010 when my niece, Alyssa, was turning 1.

These are Lily's color pages.

These are Taliyah's color pages.

Prairie point tabs.

To get even spacing on the tabs I clipped them descending in half inch increments.

These are the cute labels I added inside the back cover.

Happy 1st birthday to Lily and Taliyah.

Finish it Friday link up.

Indoor Snowball Fight In August

August is a nice hot time of year (in Maryland) to make snowballs and be thinking cool thoughts. So another Indoor Snowball Fight is born.

This bag is red, white and blue because it was made for my neighbor and her marine husband. They now live in San Diego, CA so they will be seeing VERY little snow!!

Snowballs are made out of 2 layers of white flannel.

I sewed around the outside edge but left a small hole to turn right side out and stuff them.

The bag was very quick to piece and quilt and the snowballs were equally quick to make.

Once the balls were stuffed I added eyes, mouth and noses with permanent marker.

Snowballs wait happily inside the bag.

A simple label...and...

Finished. A happy snowball fight just waiting to happen! Enjoy!!