Monday, December 28, 2015

Monday Design Wall

Good Morning!  What a Monday morning we are having here in Illinois!  Freezing rain is falling along with winds gusting to 40 miles an hour.  As I sit here at my kitchen island looking out the back door, ice is forming on the deck and wire fencing.  The weatherman is predicting 1/4" to 1/2" of ice coating forming on everything.  I am just praying that we don't loose power.  We may also receive about an inch of snow.  We are spoiled here as we have had a pretty mild winter to this point.

Yesterday we had a quiet day at home after having a large Christmas gathering here on Christmas Day.  We served about 14 family and friends dinner and later played dominoes.

After getting home from church yesterday, I spent the day cutting fabric for Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt, Allietare.  You can find the free pattern and directions HERE.  I worked on cutting the 296 half-square triangles for Clue #1 using the constant grey and neutrals.
 As I am cutting the neutrals, I was also cutting the 2" x 4 1/2" rectangles for Clue#2 and the 3 1/2" x 7 1/2" rectangles for Clue #3.  Some of the neutrals I pulled out to use were less than a fat quarter of fabric.  After cutting the above units, if there was any fabric leftover, I cut it up to fit my storage system, i.e. odd size strips go in the string bin,  2" square, 1 1/2" squares and crumbs.
 
I am really excited to be using up some of the fabric and not returning it to my drawers.  First of all, its exciting to have stash that you can pull from (its taken a long time to get to this point).  Second, I like when I use up a piece of fabric (makes room to go shopping).  Third, I have enjoyed seeing the wide selection of neutrals I have been collecting.  I try to be frugal when shopping and only by fabric with a purpose to go with a specific pattern or project.  Neutrals are my one "freebie" when shopping.  This means, I allow myself to always myself to shop for neutrals without guilt.
 
My sewing/texting buddy, Cathy and I have agreed to work on this Mystery quilt together.  We have swapped fabrics.  She also helped me out by giving me the constant grey for the project as a Christmas present.  She was traveling and visiting her daughters out West and was shop hopping.  I was so excited about receiving the fabric as I was being a good girl, staying home and finishing customer quilts.  She is farther along than I am on the quilt but its not a race.  I want to enjoy the experience.  My goal it to have the clues cut out before going to a quilting weekend on January 15th.  My plan is to quilt on customer quilts during the day and work on cutting in the evenings.  Yesterday I made great progress.  The advantage of being behind, I have all the clues printed and can cut all the neutrals at once for each clue.  I don't think I have ever cut a whole quilt out before starting to sew. 
 
 
Have a marvelous Monday!  Be safe out there as you travel in this wintery mix of weather.
 
Yours in quilting,
Terry
 
 
 
 
 
 

16 comments:

  1. Love mystery quilts. Enjoy the experience.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bonnie Hunter does a great job writing patterns and breaking down the steps for everyone. I love the reveal of the quilt and can't wait to get started.

      Delete
  2. Yea for making some progress. I too like to see the end of a piece of fabric even if the left overs go into my strip collection, or squares or whatever. You've got a nice variety of neutrals cut into strips.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with your approach to shopping. I give myself permission to buy neutrals and anything that looks solid without being solid. It definitely helps to have guidelines. Looking forward to seeing your mystery come together.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great progress!It is not a race, thank heavens. Beautiful gray and what a wonderful friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cathy always has good taste in fabric. She is a wonderful friend. Even though we don't live close together, texting and pictures keep us connected.

      Delete
  5. You will be so glad you cut all the fabric pieces before you sat down to sew. I've cut pieces for each clue and I'm finding it can be a bit hard to keep up with which strips go with which step. Hope you are able to keep to your schedule.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love making quilts without shopping too!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It took many years to get to the point I could shop in my stash.

      Delete
  7. Great progress on your quilt. I always like to remind quilters to enjoy the process. Thanks for linking up with Oh Scrap!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have a great blog. I will try to link up and share your blog link as often as possible. Happy quilting in 2016!

      Delete
  8. Solids and tone-on-tones are a great addition to any stash and so helpful to make pretty prints shine!

    ReplyDelete