Just in time

Just in time for Judy's stash busting report! ;)

Once upon a time... back in October, Ann Smith posted that she wanted testers for her NYE 2007 mystery quilt. Me! Me! Me! I was fortunate enough to see her email as it landed in my box, and was among the chosen. :D

The mystery was in three basic colors. The background (black), Color #1 (pink), and Color #2 (blue/greens). I boldly decided that I should do queen size.

We had to keep track of the time it took us to sew and iron each clue, a total of 21. For me, it took about 900 minutes - or 15 hours - to just sew the top and iron the pieces open for the next step. This isn't counting the washing, ironing, cutting, and any other prep! Phew... :)

And no! I didn't do it all in one day. I did most of the sewing back in November (yes, the secret side of my super high sewing energy). I had all the blocks done and the sashing ready to be sewn... then I got hit with the triple infection and didn't turn on my sewing machine until the next year. I like to be dramatic sometimes. :D I actually started to get back to the quilt on January first.

See all those heart points? Lots of diagonal sewing - so that meant that I could put my bonus HST method to work.

I ended up with 200 of those little buggers. Ok, they measured 2.5" unfinished. Small back then, but nothing compare to Bonnie's mystery!

I turned them into 50 pinwheel blocks.

Good thing I had 50 when I needed 48, I lost one. Then found it 3 weeks later. :P

I split open and swirled the seam on the back to distribute the bulk.

I love how it creates a secondary pinwheel!

Then here's the quilt in progress. My arms ached from reaching up so high, so I didn't get the top row of triangle pieces in place.

I set the blocks on point, 6x8.

Makes a good baby size...

...but I'm planning to put on some more borders and extending it to lap size. I know, I didn't get the corner pieces on yet. The colors in the last photo are more true than the one in the heart quilt.

I was a very busy bee in November, completing 2 quilts, 2 more tops and turning a leaders & enders project into a top. And I couldn't show you anything about Ann's mystery! :)

For anybody wanting the pattern to Love Surrounded, you can join the QT Mystery Quilts Yahoo group and get the pattern. This group is designed for mysteries only, and stays on-topic. I'm guessing the pattern will be available all January, and likely February. Ann will eventually take it down and have the pattern available for purchase.

Ann usually does two mysteries a year, the New Year's Eve and one in the summer. I love her mysteries (so well formatted!) and do them every time.
Summer 2005
NYE 2005
(No mystery for summer 2006)
NYE 2006 (Which I still haven't pieced into a top yet...)
Summer 2007

I'm pretty picky about mystery quilts, and there are some people I just can't stand how they present their mysteries. Hearing "oops! I mean, cut ABC instead of XYZ... sorry if you already cut them." isn't very encouraging! :P And no, I'm not talking about Bonnie's. :) But Ann is on my gold list for mysteries.

Making this mystery quilt busted over 10 yards of fabric! I'm gonna have to buy some more Kona Black soon. :)

Leah