Mystery and More

A little business first:
If you are a quilter who likes working with 100% cotton men’s shirts, with the help of my girls, I was able to get through my shirts and am offering them for sale on the blog HERE.  Auction ends at NOON time CENTRAL TIME TODAY.

I’ve been a busy quilter.

I’ve been able to plug through the mystery clues fairly quickly.  I’ve had enough time on Friday to finish most of them.  I keep wondering if the ball will drop and we’ll get nailed with a big clue.

Those of you who made Easy Street might remember that we went along nicely with easy clues and then WHAMMO!!  We got a whole bunch and I was suddenly way behind.  On top of that, I made TWO of the mystery quilts at the same time.  NEVER will I do that again.

So last week while I was waiting for the next clue to come out I finished up the units for Hunter’s Star….then I set up Julie (my Singer 15-91) for string piecing.  I have three machines set up at all time to sew on.  It’s wonderful if I have a couple projects going on at the same time.

If you haven’t read my story on how I got this beauty with cabinet and chair for $15, it’s a fun story and you can find it here.

Anyway…I often set this machine up with a string project.  I can leave the mess at the machine and hop over to a different machine if I need/want to sew something else.

These are the strings for Hunter’s Star.  I have all of them sewn now.  Papers aren’t removed yet but that’s okay.  My childcare kiddos often pull papers for me…or I’ll do it during a car ride.

As I was working on these I started wondering how big the quilt was.  I never looked.  Well it’s an okay size but if I make 6 more blocks, it would be an awesome size…so six more blocks.

It might not sound like much but that mean 96 more half square triangles plus other units.  It’s okay though.  I’d rather have a quilt the size I’m going to love and use than on too small.

…so even though I thought I was done with neutral string blocks…I have 24 more to do.  It’s a good thing I still have more fabric!  Bahahaha!!

As far as the mystery goes….here’s my clue #4….

I opted for pieced strips for Clue #4.  My quilt is more Civil War based.  For me Civil War quilts looks best non-wonky…so no strings.  Also I don’t have many strings that are the cheddary color or gold colored.  So pieced strips allowed me to have less variety.  Also I have the Hunter’s Star going on right now at the same time as the mystery and one string project at a time is enough.  I’m so happy that Bonnie gave several options for this clue.  It’s going to make for a lot of different “make it your own” versions!!  Isn’t it funny that me who was hoping for string blocks ended up doing mine as pieced strips??!!  You never know.  I want to make this using stash only and that’s what my stash decided.

I put all of my units so far together….

There’s a lot going on with this one.  I hope the design brings all the pieces together.

I’m ready for clue #5.  I don’t anticipate getting a lot of sewing done over the next week.  Christmas things are in full force.  I don’t have my Christmas cards done.  I have some done but the pictures didn’t show up even though I ordered them back on November 28th so they did a rush order on them and they should be here tomorrow.  So once they come, I’m on a drop everything mode to get them out in time for Christmas.

I also have to do the kids’ childcare party.  It’s not a lot but a little more than normal.  I was talking to the parents to try to coordinate a day.  It turns out that one kid is gone this day, one that day.  So to get a day that everyone was here we picked Tuesday.  I was great with that.  Then I’ll have that done and one less thing to do as the days get more and more added to them.  By Friday, when the clue comes out, all I have is childcare and then SEWING for the weekend.  Karl will float in some time over the weekend I think.  I have the 24th and 25th off.  Work the 26th and 27th then am off the 28th through the 1st.  I am SO LOOKING FORWARD TO TIME OFF!!  All of my days off have been medical related.  Finally some me time and some catch up time!!

Thanks for stopping by.  If you want to learn more about the mystery quilt…all things mystery can be found here on Bonnie Hunter’s mystery quilt page including clues and link ups.  It’s the place to go for all things mystery.  Here is the link to today’s specific post there.

If you are new here, I hope you stop by again.  We are busy bloggers who publish new blog posts every morning and evening.  We’d love to have you as a regular reader.