Mystery Quilt Progress - Bonnie Hunter's 'On Ringo Lake'

Clue #1 underway

     As I have noted before (Link here!),  I am in the middle of a once a month Magnolia Mystery Quilt (link here).  With that underway, I decided to jump in and join the Bonnie Hunter Mystery craze!  One of my guild pals finished last year's quilt, En Provence, and it was beautiful!  Although I love scrappiness, I am not a particularly precise quilter, and rarely work in small pieces.  A Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt will test my skills and take my out of my comfort zone!  I am linking up with her weekly linky party here.
       There is a huge community of quilters involved in these mysteries!  The Facebook group has over 70,000 members!    What a wealth of information and good cheer!  The fabric information was provided in November.  There is a suggested color palette, which is beautiful of teals, corals and dark browns.  Since I am really trying to reduce my stash, this palette wouldn't work, since I have literally a scrap of brown in my entire fabric collection!  I had sufficient fabric in red (having recently won some red fat quarters at the quilt retreat AND at a guild meeting!),  and gold/yellows.  The reds are dark, so I went with the darkest black fabric I could find to make sure there was contrast.  I had some, but did need to buy a few half yards to keep it scrappy.   I love using the mono filter on my phone to check the contrast!

     The first clue dropped on Black Friday.  Based on the Facebook activity, lots of folks were cutting and sewing immediately.   I was in Boston for Thanksgiving, engaging in other activities.

A flight of beer at Somerville Brewing Company

Make Way for Ducklings at the Public Garden

Top of Observation Tower at Mt. Auburn Cemetary

       This Mystery Quilt is going to take me out of my comfort zone, and make me a much better quilter.  I always struggle with the 1/4 inch seam, and reading Bonnie's great tips, now realize that I have been cutting my fabric incorrectly all these years! 
     I did a test piece to check both my cutting and my sewing.  I have to pay attention (can't be watching Ozark or Stranger Things while doing this) but it seemed to be OK.  I also dug out an index card, and checked the 1/4 inch seam on my machine.  In the meantime, my threader just snapped right off!  Until I have time to take it to the shop, I'll just have to squint to thread the machine!

     I am going to take my time doing this quilt.  I carefully cut the strips I calculated were necessary for the first clue.   Because it is a mystery, I don't want to cut too much fabric, not knowing what fabric requirements are next.  I only had a few strips left over (that will certainly be used elsewhere!), and only needed to cut a few extra.  Not bad.

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I still need to work on my cutting, since there is still something a bit off!  

In theory, these strips should be perfectly aligned.  

          It took me longer than I anticipated to do these strip sets, and get them cut, but I am in no particular rush (although I would have otherwise actually done some Christmas decorating!)

     I got a few of the 9 patch units done, and trimmed.  I am liking the scrappiness of these pieces.  I was worried that some of the reds that had other colors would not read as red, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

This phone was taken before the trimming!

     Some of the reds do read as very dark.  I hope there is enough overall contrast.  I am enjoying seeing how the fabric shows up in little pieces!

     The next clue drops on Friday (tomorrow).  I'll let you know how that goes!  

Take care,

Gretchen