Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: 2011 Mystery Quilt

Twin Mystery Top Finished

I really should have re-hung the quilt and waited for better light, but I’ve got a mini Ohio Stars quilt to make this weekend.

Mystery Quilt Revealed

This past weekend I attended the 10th Anniversary Kaye-Woods-Quilting-Friends (Yahoo! Group)  retreat at Camp Beth Eden in Conway, Missouri.  This was my 7th year.  I had a great time, but I’m exhausted!  One of the activities which you can participate in is a mystery quilt.

A mystery quilt is where you are told how much fabric you need, then are given the cutting and sewing instructions, but not told how what you are making.  Hopefully the instructions are written clear enough that there are no frustrations and in the end you have a finished quilt top which looks like the original when it is revealed.

I wrote this years mystery quilt.  My friend Mary over at Quiltn’ Gramdma’s Blog tested the pattern for me.  After the pattern was tweaked, Terri who wasn’t able to make it to the retreat offered to post the patterns to the list for anyone who wanted to participate, but couldn’t make the trip either.  She also tested the pattern for me.  This is her quilt.

This year we had six ladies complete their quilt tops.

More about the retreat and the shopping I did later.  I’ve got to straighten up my sewing room so I can unpack.

Must Have Lost My Mind

I started off the year with a bang, but here we are a bit over 10 weeks into the new year and I have 3 quilts completely cut out — 2 with the borders!  This is cannot be good for the UFO count.  To further illustrate that I’ve lost my mind, I’m planning on taking all 3 of them with me this weekend to a sew-in.

The bag on the left is Bonnie Hunter’s Fun With Bricks.  This started innocently enough as a leader/ender project in January.  The bag on the right is the Dragonfly quilt.  The middle is a red, white & blue scrappy twin size version of the Mystery Quilt I wrote for the April retreat.

Add to this that my husband has just convinced me that I need to quilt and bind six quilts before the end of June and now I know I have lost my mind. This does not include anything which is on my UFO list or any other project I want to finish sooner than later.  At least four of the quilts are completed tops.

Here they are:

Pattern - BQ2

Quilt #1 – 54 x 70.  I have enough fabric to make a second identical quilt and bind them both in the purple.  I may use the fabric to make the backing.  No idea on the thread color or quilting motif.

Pattern Old Tobacco Road

Quilt # 2 – 70 x 100  When I started the quilt in Purple, Green & Yellow, I was thinking “Mardi Gras” and purchased either 1/2 yard or yard of Mardi Gras frogs.  I may look for some more Mardi Gras fabric for the back.  The purple binding is made and tucked in with the quilt and frogs.

 

Pattern Victoria's Rose

Quilt # 3 – 68 x 86.  I have a  piece of the border fabric left in the stash.  The floral, pink and green fabrics, along with a stripe and a small floral print were part of a bundle.  I found more of the floral on-line, but don’t think I there is enough for the backing.  My spreadsheet says I have ‘binding fabric’.

Oh, my.  I just thought of something.  I really want pillow cases to go with each of these quilts.  Have I mentioned I’ve lost my mind?

 

Pattern - The Chain Event

Quilt #4 – 74 x 88.   I thought I had backing fabric for this quilt top, but when I inventoried my quilts tops and UFOs last year, I discovered I only had binding fabric.

 

Pattern - Disappearing 9-patch Variation

Quilt # 5 – 60 x 76. It’s a variation because I’m not making 9-patches and I’ve changed the size of the pieces.  It just worked better for the size quilt I wanted to make.  Fortunately I have the backing fabric – a great dragonfly print I found on-line and the binding has been cut, just not made.  So, if I finish piecing the top this weekend, this will be the first quilt I get done.

 

Pattern - Crossword Puzzle

Quilt # 6 – size unknown.  The size is unknown because this is still a work in progress.  I have about 1/2 of the letters made.  This one is going to the April quilt retreat.

I think my husband wanted to suggest a 7th quilt, but quickly left the room before I could throw something at him. Good thing I put the following qualifier in my UFO Challenge rules:

There will be occasions when a quilt will need to get moved to the top of the line regardless of the # pulled for the month. In those instances, I’ll either swap the #s if they are on this list, or if the quilt doesn’t have an assigned #, but is on either tab as of January 1, 2011, I’ll substitute it for the current # drawn. After all the goal is to get quilts off the UFO list.

Mystery Quilt Top Done

Just a peek.  Over the last couple of nights I’ve been working on a baby quilt that I’m writing a pattern for.  It will be the retreat mystery quilt in April, so I can’t show it until then.  Now off to type up the instructions.