Did any of you make Bonnie Hunter’s mystery quilt Frolic? It’s this quilt.
It was her mystery quilt from 2019. You can find the pattern on her blog. I liked the quilt but was frustrated because after the reveal we all found out that she had us make quite a few extra pieces that weren’t used in the quilt.  I don’t know if it was a typo in the instructions or if she had us make them to “throw off” the people who try to guess the quilt design as it is mystery.
Many of us were frustrated and didn’t know what we were going to do with the leftovers.
You can read all about my Frolic quilt HERE.
Well…then a couple of months later covid hit and Bonnie offered a free sew along. Clues were released each week and we sewed along with her. The premise was that it would be a round robin style quilt with rounds added each week. After the colors of red, tealy blue and navy, I decided that I would use pink instead of read with the hope that maybe I could use up some of my leftovers from Frolic. It was a good plan.
Here is my Unity Quilt…
I made Bonnie Hunter’s Unity Quilt. You can read more about it HERE. I changed the outer border. I wanted mine bigger and it ended up being 88″ x 96″. I explained the changes I did in the blog post link.
In the picture my pinks look red but they really are pinks.
Well through the process of making my Unity quilt and explaining I was using some of the leftover from the Frolic quilt, I have two blog readers send me their leftovers.
I used what I could…and then the quilt was finished…sadly, the leftovers weren’t finished. By this time I was sick of batiks. I was sick of this color scheme. I wanted something different. So when I did my big sewing room clean up, I grabbed all of the leftovers and threw them in a tote. I slapped a sticker on the tote that said Unity/Frolic leftovers and went on and sewed something different.
The other day I didn’t have a naptime project to work on so I decided I would bring the tote down and sort it all out. I love pulling out the ironing board for this. It keeps my counters in the kitchen available and I can rotate it out of the way if needed.
There were lots of of bits and bobs. I ended up taking these apart.
Here you can see things are more sorted out.
In the things from one of the blog readers, I found this block that they had sewn together. Hm…that a good idea on what to do with the blocks.
The only problem is I have a lot of half square triangles that are made with two darks. Hmm. Maybe I could make the inside of the stars with the darks and the star points with the lights.
I have a lot of these flying geese that are colored with the blue and green. I don’t know how they would look with the star blocks as there is so green in the star blocks. They might need to be in a different project. Hmm.
There are a bunch of these units.
…and these cut pieces.
Then being these are Unity quilt leftovers too, I have a bunch of stuff that is 2″ based.
I have some 1 1/2″ based leftovers too. That might be yet another project. Oh my. I don’t want to be making quilts in this color scheme for forever.
I thought about trying to add another color to the mix so they keep my interest but I really don’t know what color that would be.
Right now my goal was to sort it all out and see what I have.  I’m not necessarily wanting to jump in and sew on this, but now that it’s out…maybe I should. No time like the present they say. I just wish I had more of a direction on what I wanted to do with it all.
My main goal right now is to figure out what I’d like to do with these two bags of triangles…If I need to cut something to go with them, that’s okay. If I can use some other pieces to go with them, that would be great. I’m really open to any ideas.
Part of me thought of making another quilt in the same style as the unity quilt only make it my own blocks and styles. That way I might be able to use it all up in one quilt…but designing that would be a lot of work. Hmm.
Do you have an idea or pattern you can think of that is 2 1/2″ based? Please leave a comment and share your ideas.
For your half share triangles what about a simple 4 patch using a complementary color in using 2 plain 2″ squares in each 4 patch block.
You can make a Depression block out of the HSTs. You can find the pattern on Marcia Hohn’s Quilter’s Cache. Thanks Jo for sharing.
Wow Jo, the 2 quilts are amazing, as for the left overs I’m a star girl. Any star patern,, there are so many blocks all will take a mixture of colours. Look forward to seeing what you come up with. I’m sure inspiration will hit you when you least expect it.
I’m not good at this but I would say just put them all together as if you’re making a crumb quilt of some sort and after it’s completed you don’t like it donated to some organization that has a need.
You know it would be appreciated
Love those blue and green flying geese. Would they make a border or sections of sashing? I think they would blend with all those cut out triangles. Good luck with puzzling it out. Your Utility Quilt is stunning!
I look forward to what ever you make, but this is a real puzzler.
I made the Frolic quilt and still have all of my leftovers. As I’ve told you before, I am not a creative scrap quilter so I know I will never use them. Let me know and I’ll ship them out to you.
Hi Robin. You can send them if you’d like. The more the merrier, right??
Maybe add a lot more neutral instead of a new color. the two previous quilts are pretty and colorful but I think you could change up the look of the color scheme by making it more neutrals with occasional pops of color.
I started last fall the free double pinwheel pattern that I saw in Pinterest. It uses the 2 1/2 inch blocks. I stayed consistent with the orange and yellow, but uses a variation of the other colors to make up the quilt. It turned out beautiful. Mine is made in light and dark hue with the white. It was a fun one block quilt. It is considered a 1930’s pattern and I love 1930’s quilts.
I think I would just sit down one day and make pinwheels out of the two dark HSTs. Just a load of pinwheels. You could also make pinwheels out of the dark/light ones. Just get a pile of pinwheels together and then the rest will come along. Not stressing is a good thing. Did you read Bonnie’s blog today about not stressing? https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2021/09/weekend-of-quilts.html
Sorry, Jo! I’ve got nothing. No ideas about how you might used these leftover bits. I’m sure you’ll think of something (or send them along for the Community Quilts program!)
I’ve done many of Bonnie’s quilts but only one mystery (her pieces are tinier than I normally work with). DH died in Aug. 2012 and I needed stuff to do. I LOVED the colors of Easy Street so I jumped on it. Just finished it this year but I LOVE it! Really like the one she posted today that she’s sending to a relative and it’s a freebie so may do that one (Sugarbowl) soon.
My favorite thing to do is grab my 365 perpetual calendar with quilt blocks! It is a fun challenge to see how many I can make based on the leftover parts; made several baby quilts with the units from Bonnie’s Good Fortune awhile back.
Look at Good Night Irene in Missouri Stars website. A lot of 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 inch squares. It’s pretty, but boy oh boy….a lot of pueces.
Can’t go wrong with stars and pinwheels in my estimation. You said you were tired of the color combinations but I noticed there is very little if any of one color. Yellow. Lately I’ve been on a yellow kick. The mother of one of my quilting friends once told her a quilt needs a touch of yellow. Just a thought. Whatever you do will be great. Love your designs.
Look up Jen Kingwell for inspiration. She uses all kinds of fabric in one quilt. Another person is Angela Pingel. One of her pattern is Veiled Suggestion. Happy Creating.
Hi Jo I make comfort or charity quilts by choosing a width and making rows of blocks that width. Then I sew the rows together, sometimes with sashing. The rows can be all different but the colors being the same ties them together.
Hi Jo, yes, I could use a new cover for my ironing board. It is old also. I think I understood what you did with the front of the board, but how did you finish the rest of it? Thanks.
For the rest I just turned over the edge twice and made a casing. I left a hole at the wide end so I could run the elastic through and pull it tight.