Mystery Monday Link Up!

Thankfully last Friday's clue #5 was a super simple one - other than 45 minutes of hexies it was a go-go-go weekend. I was lucky to finish what I did and that was because I stopped working on town taxes long enough for the first hour of Quilt Cam. It was nice to take that break amongst the chaos.

Yipper - my little Quality Control Officer was checking my work and blocking my light =^..^=

Did you ever think your food is laughing at you??
Well, today, I finally caught it on "film". LOL

Me thinks he looks a little worried now that he's on "film" !

Have a great week!!

Grand Illusion progress update

Whoo Hoo! In between cookies and gift making this weekend I finally made some progress on my Grand Illusion mystery quilt.

I finally finished Step #1!! OK, so I still have to press open and pinwheel the seams but they are cut and sewn.

And it's not like I've been slacking on the other steps:

I've been having trouble getting the diamond pdf/template to print the correct size so the strips for step #2 are ready but I am at a standstill. Me thinks I'll have to improvise :)

I have also been cutting strips for Step #3.

And don't forget I already have those 80 pink/turquoise HST done for step #4. LOL!

I'm hoping I'll get some free time Wednesday or Christmas Day for some "fun" sewing so I can make some progress. I'll have to start working on taxes the day after Christmas so probably won't get much sewing time over the weekend.

And just because I though this was hilarious...this fabric was the perfect color for my mystery quilt! In small pieces you can barely tell they are onions.

Design Wall Monday - 12/8/14

Friday night was Hexie Club night and I worked both Saturday and Sunday at the LQS so it felt like all I did was cut fabric this weekend but...when I went to take pictures this morning I discovered I accomplished more than I thought. Yay me!!!

What I did not photograph was getting Tyler's quilt sandwiched. I had bought 108" wide backing fabric and I had recently bought yards and yards of batting on sale. I spray baste using the tables at the LQS and the actual spraying part is a breeze but making sure all three layers were cut down to size, perfectly flat and lined up took quite a while since I was working by myself.

We offer a "Sandwich Club" at the LQS to assist each other with spray basting projects. The small class fee includes sandwiches for lunch :-) Now if I could just convince a few more people to join in it would be more fun for the group...

I cut a ton of red and white strips since I still need another 50 or so Ruby Beauty blocks. I sewed half of them together and pressed them open last night. I probably won't have much time to subcut or sew the 4-patches this week since I (hopefully) have my final bazaar tomorrow and I'm having a Christmas Party at my house on Sunday. I suppose I ought to decorate before the party! Luckily the girls understand my studio (right off the living room) is never "clean" but used and loved!

174 HST down, 106 left to go...for Clue #1

I bought three more pinks at the LQS this weekend and then cut out some more turquoise/pink HST units. I should be at 2 or 3 more non-LQSs in the next week so I can get even more variety. In case you are wondering, I don't "do" pink as a norm so I try to force myself once in a while so I can expand the stash and I think these rose colors are a good compromise.

Each clue is in it's own basket so I can track progress. I prefer to finish each step before I move on to another and this will keep it all sorted until I get some more FQs for variety.

Last but not least, I also worked on Clue #2. I have all 200 black triangles cut and I've cut neutral strips for the diamonds. I'll hold off cutting pinks until I get some more in the next week.

Keep your fingers crossed for the bazaar tomorrow. It's been delayed twice due to "snowvember" and there is another storm coming tomorrow, which will either affect the bazaar or the guild Christmas party...or both. I'm ok with some snow but there are plenty who are not...

Design Wall Monday - 12/1/14

Here is is, the first Monday after Thanksgiving. Sew what you say???Well, it's the first linky party for Bonnie's 2015 mystery quilt: Grand Illusion!!

It may not look like I got a ton done on Clue #1 so far but, with everything over my 5 day vacation, I made progress on a lot of things and finished virtually nothing. No worries - I had a blast!!

I finally made it to the city yesterday and popped into Lowe's for some paint chips. Mind you, I've already picked fabrics to start with but I wanted to compare to Bonnie's colors. I'm using just the one yellow but I only grabbed my fav 2 FQs of the other three colors for comparison. I'm stoked about the colors. It will be bright and just up my alley!!

Probably hard to tell by the aerial view but all 100 of my yellow and black squares are cut. I was happy to find some blacks with yellow and teal in them! I have only cut 100 HST pairs, hence the button, (I count by 10s using old thimbles and change for a large button when I get to 100. Harder to explain than to do it in my sleep.) Anyways...180 more HST pairs to cut. I don't have a lot of rose pinks yet so I might stall cutting them until I get to a different quilt shop.

PS - be sure to pop back in tomorrow for Bibliophile Files!!