Sandra-P

Kalama, I used the Accuquilt to cut my shapes. They do not give any wiggle room. It is ok, I can go to the quilt store and get more blue tomorrow to get it finished.

AlvaStitcher

Kalama, I haven’t cut any out of the green yet because I didn’t want to start and then find out that I did I not have enough with slight likelihood of finding more of the fabric. It would seem that there will be more than I have needed. Guess I’ll have to go to store to look for an alternative fabric to use.

joe'smom

Sandra_P, these really are persnickety units. I'm having to rescue most of my right side tops from being mangled, and am using the stiletto (my seam ripper) for every piece so the points don't go off. Then there's the tendency I get to have a rounded bottom on the geese (I believe this is from faulty pressing?). And we may have to do this all over again come Friday with the aqua QST triangles. I'm out of one of my aquas, but the rest I would be able to re-cut so as to use another method. If we pair the aqua with the green, I'm out of the lightest green that looks best with them. Maybe we'll pair with our red. (Does anyone else think the reveal might be on Friday?)

Belfrybat

I'm behind because I've been doing two one-day mystery quilts, both of which will take another day to finish. I'm really griped with myself for cutting those QSTs. I didn't do Bonnie's quilt last year and forgot that QST usually means flying geese with her. My machine eats triangle corners. As much as I hate to waste fabric I think I'm going with the no-waste method. It will help me keep my sanity.
And I certainly hope the reveal won't be on Friday. I thought she said she was extending into January.

Sandra-P

Belfrybat, I wish I hadn't cut mine either. I am going to try to do them tomorrow after a good nights sleep and if it gets too frustrating for me then I will go off and buy more fabric to redo them with the 4 at a time method. I have all of Bonnie's rulers and I still have problems, I know it is just me, not her rulers fault.

Iceblossom

For those of us cutting large and trimming down or others having problems with these geese, here's what I'm doing. First, I whined and groaned yesterday about the geese and my fabric and figured out a way to work around it in a way that works for me. My apologies if it doesn't help your particulars, I really wish sometimes I had chosen nice easy prints to work with so I have some concerns the rest of you don't need to worry about.

Once again, my mental count was wrong. I got confused with the number of finished sets and that I would need 4 squares of each fabric per set. I'll have to cut more but I have more fabric so that's not an issue.

So, I decided to go ahead and keep cutting my oversized HST squares for this step the same size I've been doing all along. I cut my squares in an X to Bonnie's measurement in the previous step and that is my constant. So I overlay my oversized triangles to give me a nice bit to trim down. Again, I'm using a quilting foot that is 1/4" on both sides, so for machines that suck down points, give this a go. If your foot isn't good for it, I do suggest you draw the lines or at least put some tape down on your machine to mark the edge.

Sorry for the ugly fabric that came up first and the poor contrast on the backgrounds. So the pictures are:
One set getting ready for sewing
Stitched alternating sides so points don't get sucked down
Side two on
Finished goose, untrimmed on top, trimmed on bottom

juliasb

I seriously thought about doing this mystery or at least saving the pattern for future use but I am just not going to do it right now because I get myself in gear with other quilty things here in my studio and with the grace frame in the other room. I am making a bit of progress here this morning. Starting another quilt before I straighten up from the last one, the baby quilt, I just finished and getting through the rest of the holiday season, the 12th night celebrations. Then putting away the decorations has to take precedence over a quilt right now. Plus I have family coming tomorrow to celebrate the 10th day of Christmas. I think I am a bit overwhelmed right now.

QuiltingLawyer

Anyone else feel like these clues are all really fiddily? Normally she's so pull what ever you have and stick in the quilt. This one has been so focused on making sure you have matching sets. I have completely finished half of clues 4 and 6. The rest are cut and ready to chain piece. I did finish clue 5.

I agree that the other QST is probably going to be another flying geese. I'm thinking it might be in neutral... I have tones of neutral left.

joe'smom

I recall Bonnie commenting somewhere in the beginning, that she wanted to mix things up a bit this year so the mystery was less routine for her (that's a rough paraphrase), so that's where I think the 'fiddly' is coming from. I think it has made it quite fun and interesting. I don't recall being quite this curious in other years!

I would be surprised if we pair the aqua with the neutral because the contrast would be so low (for those of us who did go very light with the aqua), but you never know. (I still think she will reveal on Friday. We would then be two days further into January than the usual reveal.) (Missing the old smileys right about now.)

I'm happy to say that I figured out the sweet spot to tuck my right hand (clue 6) point under my feed dogs so they would not get chewed up. Things went much more smoothly after that. I have my right sides sewn and pressed, and pieces all set up for the left hand sewing today. I'm hoping they're not too much of a mess when I go to measure them.

Two of my aqua/blue HSTs sets are missing. It won't be hard to re-do them, but I sure wish I knew where they went.

Sandra-P

Yay! Thank you Iceblossom, I really am a visual learner and your pictures with description help me a lot! I do feel that this time around Bonnie is being more persnickety and it was what I messed up with a few clues ago and I had to recut some of mine.