It's a Mystery
Sunday, January 08, 2012 7 Comments »
A few months ago, I got a subscription offer from McCall's Quilting. If I renewed my subscription, I could gift another to a friend for free. I thought of my buddy Marsha, sent off the subscription, and then forgot about it. When the first magazine arrived, Marsha promtly noticed that it contained the first part of a 3-part mystery quilt -- "new & easy", it said, and "only 4 fabrics". Little did I know that doing a mystery quilt was on Marsha's bucket list of quilting things to do. Would I do it with her? Please?
The quilters addiction enablement alarm bell went off in my head; too many project coming up, not sure about the commitment. yada yada yada. But this was Marsha asking. I love Marsha, and I am weak. So very weak.
I also happen to enjoy doing mystery quilts. Although they are not everyone's cup of tea, an occasional mystery is a challenge for me -- an entertaining break, and a chance to do something out of my comfort zone, and now a chance to share the experience with a friend.
The folks at McCalls set everything up quite nicely, especially for a beginner. The hardest part of doing a mystery is choosing the fabrics. How the heck to you pick fabrics when you have no idea where they will be going? This mystery uses only 4 fabrics and there are very clear directions about what values to pick:
- Fabric A is a multi-color fabric that will be the focus fabric;
- Fabric B is a non-directional tone-on-tone, and is the opposite value of Fabric C (for instance, if you choose light for B, the C will be dark, and vice-versa);
- Fabric C is a non-directional small-to-medium scale print that is the opposite value of B;
- Fabric D is another fabric that plays well with the others, it can be light or dark, directional or not.
Here are the fabrics I chose, and my start on the first part of the mystery. I need to do 40 of those hour glass blocks, and 20 of the other block. They are 6" unfinished, and will finish at 5.5".
I think Marsha has hers done already, but I'm not racing -- I'm just enjoying the ride!
By the way, don't let any of my granddaughters see this post. I have a feeling the finished quilt is destined for one of them.
7 comments:
You beat me to it! I hope, later today, to post my mystery quilt fabrics, etc. Love the brights you chose. My palette is kind of different from what I am usually attracted to.
BTW, I just noticed that Owen's birthday is the day before mine. Of course he was "new" that day, while I just chalked up the latest of many.
I'll send you the link when I put my post up.
I saw this in my magazine as well and thought about doing it....then I forgot about it.
Currently I do have a few projects going on but I should set that magazine to the side away from all my others so I can possibly try to do that sometime this year!
Hope it's fun!
HOW FUN!!
very neat. can;t wait to see the end product
OK... so here's mine:
http://newfutureahead.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-mystery-quilt.html
I saw that mystery in McCalls and really liked that they showed the different fabric combos chosen. I like your choices!
your header is soooooooooo funny!!
I have yet to do a mystery quilt....but enjoy seeing others.
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