A Mussel Mystery

Haha, I thought there was a deadline for this mystery quilt that my quilt guild arranged. So I crammed and crammed to get this thing done by last Wednesday, and it turns out there's no deadline. But it's finished, and that's great!

Just like the mantra we had at the guild that evening: Better finished than perfect!

Here's the familiar front:

And the simple back:

Below are a bunch of pictures showing the quilting. After trying to figure out how to quilt a quilt that's so puffy in places from those unsquared blocks, I decided minimal quilting targeted to safe, non-puffy areas was the way to go. Because there was nothing to lose on this quilt, I also decided to play around with new quilting motives. I hate practicing free-motion and wasting good fabric on those pieces, so I use quilts that are already less than perfect (*grins*) and make them into guinea pigs.

I tried feathers in the center, but got tired of those.


Then I tried blossomy-loops in the white hour glass shapes, those were okay.


What ended up giving this quilt its name, Mussel Mystery, was the mussel-shell like McTavishing I started and kept going with in all the white triangles and some of the multi-coloured ones.


In the end, and despite my expectations, I like this quilt - it's quirky! But I'm staying away from triangles for a while...

When Corners Don't Meet, Follow This Wisdom...

The other day, I had a great comment from Lane about my Mystery Quilt:

I like the pattern. And, from here, can't see any missed points. Like Eleanor Burns says, sometimes you have to "hang 'em high and keep 'em moving." Lane

I have to say I really like that saying! I guess I need an attic window for that purpose, right? :)

I put a couple of borders on the quilt and that framing effect made all the difference for me.

How do you like the little corner blocks? They were way more tricky than I anticipated - long story :)


I've got the backing almost done and am hoping to get this finished in time for the next guild meeting which might be next week!

Mystery Quilt

I finally sewed together the mystery quilt!

Now onward to a backing and then some interesting quilting so that I can present it at the next guild meeting.


I have to admit that the many points were triangles meet were a nightmare. I need to learn that trick with the rotating/windmill seams to reduce the bulk.

Also, I must have skipped the squaring-up of the HSTs step a lot of the seams did not meet at all. Maybe this is my "mini-disaster" quilt :)

We have a layout winner!

Thank you all for your input about the layout options!!

Here are the vote results to date:

#1 - 0
#2 - 2
#3 - 1
#4 - 3
#5 - 4

With my own vote for 5, that's the one :) It's interesting to see how different everyone's taste is.

Viewer's Choice!

I finished all my units for the mystery quilt for the quilt guild!



However, I don't like the layout for my colour choices, it actually gives me a headache to look at even if it doesn't quite show in the photo. Anyway, I've played around with the units a bit. The first one is the original layout, I'll number them, and if you could comment on which layout you like best, I'd appreciate some input! I have a personal favourite, but don't want to bias you. A couple of the layout changes are really subtle, just 4 blocks turned around for example, but there are no double photos, I checked! Thanks :)

1. Original
2. White hour glasses3. Corner units turned around
4. Hour glass alternative

5. Green circle with multi-coloured center

I Jumped Right In!

Last week I went to the monthly quilt guild meeting for the second time and this time I joined. They had a really neat new thing: visitors got a white-star felt name tag and new members got a tag in a heart shape. Old members were asked to make everyone with a star or heart especially welcome and it totally worked. People could easily see that I was new and they had my name so starting a conversation was easy!

Best of all, the programs coordinator mentioned to me that the guild executive goes on a weekend retreat every fall, and there were three spaces still open and wouldn't I want to go along? Yay! Great for me as newbie to see a) what it's like to quilt alongside other quilters on my own projects and b) get to know some of the other members of the guild, c) learn lots of tips from all the experienced quilters that will be there, and d) to get to see a beautiful B&B in PEI for a really good price (2 nights plus meals for 100$, holy cow!!!) .

I ended up taking advantage of the guild's quilting library and borrowed one of the Elm Creek Quilts books that I hadn't read yet (probably because my town library doesn't have it - I wonder how many more are out there... chould look it up online I suppose).

At next month's meeting, members are encouraged to bring a little crafty something in a paper bag, anonymous, and we'll have a sort of secret santa for christmas. I look forward to making a little something of my "non-quilty how to" side bar :)

I also committed to making a block for the raffle quilt for next year's quilt show. I would have done more than one block, but the 6 blocks that make up the stunning quilt are mostly paper-pieced and I don't know how to do that. I had a hard enough time with all the tiny pieces in this block, phew. Not even that tiny, but it's a different story when my seam allowances are mixed with that of other quilters. At least when I make the whole quilt, I know it'll work out because all the block will be a bit smaller than intended :)

I received a ziploc bag that contained the instructions and precut pieces of fabric:

Once I figured out which fabric is which, I started on the small half-square triangles.

They were supposed to be 2" squares in the end, and I managed to trim them all to about that size. I couldn't imagine making a whole quilt in this pattern, so much cropping just for one block!!! I guess I am not a very patient person ;)


In the end, the layout worked out pretty well:


The guild meeting was on Wednesday and this block was finished by Saturday - I guess I was very excited :)


Because all this wasn't enough, I also signed up for the Mystery Quilt. I've heard about them, but had never done one before.

Again, we got instructions (they're on step 3, but I didn't miss much because step 1 was picking fabric and step 2 was cutting).


We had to pick a bold medium print, a dark and a light fabric. I tried to match a light and dark to a batik out of my stash first, but gosh, it's hard to match anything other than batik or solid, prints just didn't work with the batik, at least within the realm of my stash. Here are my choices:


I cut enough fabric for the smaller of the two size choices - what they call a wall hanging (38"x38"). It was that or a queen size quilt, and not knowing what it'll look like in the end, I didn't want to take the risk. Plus, the bigger quilt just uses blocks twice as big - and 9" half-square triangle blocks are not really my thing I'd say.


Then I went on to step three and matched up all the slightly larger squares destined to become half-square triangles and sewed them together. Also a lot of sewing!


Now, I don't really like cutting the little corners off after I iron the blocks, so I did it before I cut the squares in half, by snipping a wedge out of each corner between the seams, just a tad pointier than a 90 degree angle.

(I already cut and ironed all my blocks, so I just held two together, you get the idea :)

Not sure if it saved any time, I guess I didn't have to pick up as many pieces, as I cut the eqivalent of 2 HST blocks with every piece I snipped.

I'm very excited to see where this is going. Right now I'm expecting a star, probably because I just made one for the raffle quilt :)

So, I'd call that a case of me jumping in with both feet! Oh, and I'm the youngest member by three years. The next one up turned around in her seat, grinned and said "Yes! I'm not the youngest any more!!!" She was busy during the meeting making a Grandmother's Flower Garden out of less-than-penny-sized hexagons. I mentioned that the pattern is aptly named, because she'll likely be a granny by the time it's done. The patience some people have!!!

I'm so excited about the next meeting!

And tomorrow I'll show you how the story of my Imagination 1/Soft quilt continues :)