I love paintmejudy's mystery quilts she does. They are here on the board and to me, they are awfully fun. I love seeing all the variations of the same theme and the end results are amazing I think. She will be doing another come January. Free, right price range, and she is very good at talking about color and color value's when telling you to pick your fabrics. Also.. I had trouble with Bonnie hunters last mystery as she showed such .. interesting colors, ie not my type at all, as her examples and I couldn't see how to change them to make it my type of quilt.. Moda is doing one with some pretty fabrics right now.. probably a bit more traditional?

I'm not much of a gambler. If I'm going to spend a lot of time, effort and money on something I have to know I'm going to like it before I make the commitment.

I use the mystery quilts for charity quilts. It is a challenge to see if you can come out with something you like but to see if you can keep up with the clues. I usually do one on NYE and NYD every year. Most are lap size just perfect for charity.

I NEED to do this mystery quilt to get me challenged and back on track with my quilting - last December I took a fall and wasn't able to work on my quilting for over 8 months, still recovering, but I'm able to get back to doing cutting and piecing - hope to be back on track totally when it comes time to making the quilt sandwich ( on the floor :( ) to be able to finish it! My last Bonnie mystery quilt top, and 2 others still need to be sandwiched & quilted.....
Bonnie does a great job on the instructions, and keeping one interested in the project. By encouraging us to post images as we complete the steps is an extra push to keep up with the group. I LOVE Bonnie Quilts!!!

I have done several MQs from several different sources. Our local LQS had a teacher who did an MQ each month. In the 2 years I attended, I finished one top a month except for 6 or 7 sessions. Many of those quilts were gifted to friends and family. I have done an MQ from http://www.persimmonquilts.com/ which is a Quilts of Valor pattern, and I have done a couple Debby Caffrey MQs, a Charlotte Angotti MQ, and a Doug Leko MQ at retreats. Planet Patchwork also has MQs once or twice a year. This is one that I did about 6 years ago. I loved the waterfall effect that kept if from being a same old rail fence.

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I have found that you just have to take a deep breath, exhale, and go for it. Most MQs will have suggestions for fabric selection, and they are a great way to step outside your box and try something new (never done a '30's, Thimbleberry, Civil War? Go ahead and try it now.). The picture I have included below is a New Year's Planet Patchwork MQ from 1/1/2012 that I have just gotten back to <LOL> When I got to the last border, I realized my fabric was too light, so I have gotten a couple purple batiks that look much better and will finish it "sometime".
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I've never done a Bonnie Hunter, and except for the QOV, don't plan to do another MQ for a while.

I'm like you. Scared to death I'll end up spending both time and money making a project I don't like. In 16 years of quilting I've never done a mystery quilt and don't feel I've missed out on anything. Glad there are people who enjoy making them. Nice. But it's just not for me.

I've only done mystery quilts when published in a magazine, and then I "cheated", and collected all the magazines for that mystery quilt, then decided if it was a quilt I would like to make. I know that's not the way to do it, but I have done block of the month quilts on line. Guess I like to see what I'm going to do before I do it.

I love the mystery of the mystery quilt. I always choose colors that I like or at the very least are interesting together and just dive in. Often the results are far better than you expect. If you are a traditionalist, then go with those colors. If you are modern, mod, bright color quilter then go with those. I have never finished a mystery that I did not like. I give them away in the end because I don't particularly need another quilt but I had the fun of the mystery! Yummy.

The very first quilt I ever actually finished was a mystery quilt. The fabrics were picked and she sent me cutting instructions, then sent me the beginnings of the assembly instructions then the final part and I love it and was proud to raffle it off at our last family reunion. Embrace the challenge, I would absolutely do it again. [ATTACH=CONFIG]445244[/ATTACH]

That is exactly what I do too...l
LoL - not a mystery then, but not a disappointment either

mhollifiel and others struggling with using colors other than those suggested by the mystery designer: Last year, although I was very excited about doing Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery, I immediately knew the colors she suggested were not ones I would enjoy using or having a quilt in that palette.

I started with a fat eighth bundle that I'd purchased (Collection for a Cause Friendship), which was mostly reds and browns (which I loved) and aqua, which I didn't love quite so much. I used the aqua as the color that the least fabric was needed for. I pulled lots of reds and browns from my stash. http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...t-t229833.html

Another method would be to look at a print fabric and pull those colors out. If you look at the colors I pulled for this year, they are pretty much colors that are in a leaf print I recently purchased. Post 15 here:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/links-r...t233227-2.html

I'm also going to do Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery quilt. I like the colors/values picked and want to use some stash up--but really don't have a lot of orange in my stash so having to buy those!

I've only made one other mystery quilt--it was a workshop with our Guild. The teachers were good, the directions great. My only problem was that I really wasn't able to envision the fabric combo's and consequently not thrilled about the outcome--like the pattern, but the color I thought ws the "background" (and I loved this print) turned out to be used very little in the body of the quilt and for borders. Afterward a friend in the Guild said that she always used Christmas fabric for mystery quilts as they invariably turn out looking Christmasy no matter the pattern! This quilt really didn't have color choices inthe pre-instructions.

One thing I'm looking forward to with Bonnie Hunter's new one is that she's giving us some colors to work with.

I've done two Bonnie Hunter mysteries, Roll, Roll Cotton Boll and Easy Street. I love the way she teaches and her clear instructions. I still look at RRCB and am amazed I managed to make something that complex looking. Easy Street was another matter. I went along with the color selections because I wanted to see what would happen however, I detest that limey chartreuse green. The whole thing looked like a giant test pattern...to me. So, I asked myself what did I learn and it was that if I don't agree or really love the colors, I need to follow my own path...and Bonnie would be the first person to encourage that. So working with her quilts has set me free in a number of directions. I've got all my fabrics for Celtic Solstice and can't wait to begin!

I have done all of Bonnie Hunter,s mystery quilts since I started sewing and love them all. I didn,t know what I was doing when I started quilting--and in my opinion they turned out great. She breaks down all the steps very nicely. I,m not great at picking colors --so I always use her color choices and have not once been disappointed in any of them.

A huge Thank You to peaceandjoy for your post. I LOVED your Easy Street. The reds are so rich and really unite the pattern. I also love the way you varied the colors in your choices for this year. I hope you don't mind but my stash really reflects your choices and is much more appealing to me SO, I have printed out a copy of that picture and will be using it as my jumping off point for my Friday stash selections. You have restored my joy in this year's BH mystery in one single post!

I have almost made one. I made it part of the way through a Debbie Coffrey mystery. I was still a beginner and didn't realize all those individually cut HST were going to be geese and square in a squares or I would have made them differently. Not one single piece I made matched the 5.5" finished size. It was a disaster. I've put most of the pieces back into my stash and the rest I just threw out.

That being said, I'm doing Bonnie's Orange Crush right now. I love it. The mystery is revealed as in I can see the picture of what it's going to look like when it's done. The triangle units I can make them my way since I know what units they will end up and it will waste less fabric and provide me TONS of less frustrations.


I LOVE jigsaw puzzles, yet I want to know what each one is going to look like when it's done so I know what goes where. It makes sense to me to know what a mystery is going to look like in the end and the mysterious part is just doing one thing at a time through the process and then assembling the pieces like I would jigsaw. I'm having a ball.

I've made a couple mystery quilts. A couple of them I liked a lot. One of them, not so much. Lots of times the publisher has done other mystery quilts that you might be able to look at, and then you'd see if you like her style. Good luck with it and have fun. The unknown is often fun and if you hate it, I'll bet you can find a charity to give it to where someone will love it. Even if it turns out ugly as sin, it'll keep someone warm, and they will be grateful for it.