Bonnie Hunter 2020/2021 Winter Mystery: Grassy Creek
 

It's time once again for the Bonnie Hunter winter mystery quilt! This year there was no travel abroad to inspire the quilt, so the inspiration is the beautiful fall colors Bonnie enjoyed this fall while driving around in the Virginia area.

The introduction post for colors, theme and yardage is up on Bonnie's blog: https://quiltville.blogspot.com/

The first clue will appear on her blog on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving (here in the U.S.), which this year is Nov. 27, and each Friday thereafter until the mystery concludes. Someone will usually post the clue in this thread as well, and it can also be found on Bonnie's Facebook page (which we can't link to here), and can also be accessed (usually after a short delay) by clicking on the mystery tab at the top of her blog page.

Bonnie has certain rules for discussing her mysteries, which we will follow here. She asks that we not mention the size of units, nor the number of units we are making. Also, she asks that we not take pictures of our units on our cutting mats (or else cover up the ruler markings). We love seeing photos of your fabrics and your progress!

There was a helpful posting of the paint chips in grey scale on the Facebook page today. There isn't a lot of value contrast between the colors this year. The red and grey read as dark, and the gold, green and orange read as a little bit lighter than the red and grey. The were three points Bonnie made about value contrast in the intro post: The orange may appear next to the gold, so make sure you can differentiate between those two; not to go too light with any of the colors because there needs to be good contrast between all of the colors and the neutral, and stay away from yellowish and tan neutrals so they don't blend with the gold.

In the pictures Bonnie shows of her fabrics in the intro, she seems to have a wide range of values within each color.

For any first-timers to a Bonnie mystery -- welcome! Bonnie's quilts work best with small prints, because the pieces are usually smallish, so with a big print, you can't be sure of getting the right color piece unless you fussy cut. You can go scrappy, or you can use one fabric to represent each color.

This is a historic mystery for me -- the first time I will be able to use only stash! DH was thrilled when I told him, 'I won't have to spend a penny,' LOL. I'm also thinking of approaching the mystery this year as a leader/ender project, so I can keep momentum going with my current project.

I am thinking about joining in, but I don't want to use Bonnie's colors. I hated my Good Fortune quilt which did follow her colors!

I have a lot of blues, greens, and purples in my stash, but I'm really lacking in grays. So I'll have to go get a few more to mix in. I'm also thinking about adding in turquoise. Substituting colors for Bonnie's can be confusing. Anybody got a system worked out for this?

Thanks joe’smom for managing this thread another year. It’s hard to believe it’s November already...

I had to skip last year because I was moving, so I'm excited to jump back in this year.

Last year was my first Bonnie Hunter mystery and I was able to follow through it in real time despite choosing challenging fabrics last year. This year I'm mostly doing it to have something to do and because although I usually press my seams open, I'm going to do it to Bonnie's directions and to the side this year. I felt that (other than trying to keep the mystery alive) she gives very good explanations and that has always bugged me with pressing to the side.... "press to the dark side except here and there and this and that". I like having the one rule (press open except on curves) without any of the special corollaries.

This year I'm choosing more standard prints, and I can already see I need to put out a call to my Tuesday group members about grey scraps. I see Parakeet is back as a color this year...

I've had a terrible time this year getting started on my own projects, basically haven't done anything I planned to do (my quilting is usually roughly planned out 6-10 years ahead...), but I'm happier when I'm sewing and I am able to respond even if I'm not initiating much on my own.

My Frolic top is completed but not quilted down yet -- I think I might have a home for it now so it is moving up on the priority list.

In between now and the start of the new project on Black Friday, I also have a Frolic UFO to complete, goal is to get it put together and sent off before I start the next one. The original quilter did great work and got most of it it done, but there was a confusion on the mystery things and in one step 41 units instead of 41 sets of units was made, once that was figured out it is set up now with all the parts for each square/setting triangle in a bag and is ready to be assembled. This is what I find is the fun part of quilting, the putting together without the tedium, and all I have to do is ship it out when the top is pieced and no quilting... I like this!

Dear Fellow Quilters,
I clicked on Bonnie's link that asked me to download some sort of a program. Now remember that I was 16 years old the very first time I heard the word computer. So I downloaded this program. It totally erased my access to this board and many, maybe all of the other boards, that I am on. (chickens, beekeeping, etc.) I am sooooo unhappy. Now how do I fix this. My computer wiz kid joined the military and is now doing cyber security, and for the country now, not just me.
Did everyone else have the same experience?
Marcia

Oh dear -- I'm not sure what program you were asked to download. It sounds to me like maybe you have installed a different browser or something. (Bing, Firefox, Edge, Cortanna, Opera, etc.)

It is possible that you didn't have a PDF (Portable Document File) reader and may have had to download Adobe or another reader. That's ok, but that should be the only program needed to access Bonnie's instructions and it should not have changed anything else.

I’m looking forward to seeing the end results and I will download all the clues, but I am waiting till the end for this one so that I can piece everything using my preferred methods, and I may use different colors. I love her patterns and don’t mind the small pieces and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone’s color choices and progress!

It's some kind of a web browser and the little house with a tree beside it looks like something from Hansel and Gretel and is most sinister. The ads on this are horrendous and now there is the same green sign at the top asking me to continue downloading aTV Launcher. I don't even have a TV any more. It got struck by lightning. The Lord has spoken.

Ok, Battle Axe, stop the downloads -- unplug your computer if necessary and call the wiz kid. They will want to help. It will probably be pretty simple for them to walk you through a safe start to get you to your old browser and to remove this bad stuff.

Basically I think you got hijacked and tricked and it wasn't really from Bonnie at all. My system is pretty locked down and I've never had anything sketchy come up from her site, but the bad companies are really good at making us click on things we shouldn't...

Battle Axe, I have printed out the introduction to the mystery....and I did not have anything like that happen....I would not click on anymore links with whatever it is you have downloaded.....sometimes hackers are pretty inventive and I have click on innocent looking stuff. Most of the time I have recognized I don't want to go there.....good if you have some computer person who can help you with this....my nephew is an IT person and I will call him when I panick and he usually say as long as I haven't given out any info, I am OK...but one time he did come over and sort it all out.....I do use Norton on my computer also even though my internet provider apparently has a virus catcher too and it has stopped a few things.....sometimes I just shut everything off and restart too....

Thanks for posting Joe'smom. I'm headed to Lowes today. I thought I wasn't planning on it this year but your intro reminds me of how fun it is. May have to jump into this one head first. Maybe with yardage this year.

I do not know if I am going to do the mystery at this point. I do not want to go out shopping as I am old and feeble. But not too old and feeble to give up quilting.....Anyway, I was thinking I did not have enough grey....but without even going up to the attic to look in my attic stash, I managed to find more than half the amount Bonnie said we would need....so, I may just do it....If I find a big enough piece of grey....I just may think of doing everything in one fabric for each color....never have I done that before....

I use the free AD Blocker and it stops all those ads and pop ups on Bonnie Hunter blog site. I wouldn't go to her site without some kind of ad blocker program.

If you have the paint chips or a print out of the paint chips, attach a scrap of the fabric for the colors you’re using to the corresponding paint chip. Then refer to this for each clue.

Battle Axe, I'm so sorry this happened to you! I have seen these download messages interspersed on many quilting websites I go to. I've learned to never click on anything that commands me to download. When we first got our current computer, I was innocently clicking on every download message that popped up, and it completely messed up the computer and we had to get expert help to straighten it out. I hope you can get it all fixed quickly.

I have not tried substituting colors for the winter mystery, but one thing I recall people doing is finding a focus fabric they like and using that to plan a palette. There are also a number of palette websites that I see people referring to for inspiration. I did substitute colors for the Unity quilt using that 3-in-1 color tool Bonnie promotes, and that worked well for me.

With the lack of value contrast between the 5 colors (I'm including gray as one of the colors) and taking Bonnie's photos of her fabrics as a clue, which show a wide range of value, I would say the main thing is that you have good contrast between your neutral and all of your colors, and make sure that whatever represents your gold and orange, that there is good contrast there.

Just pulled the color chips. Here's a clue for everyone on this board. Red, Orange and Green are in Color Pizzazz. White and Gray are in Perfectly Political. Yellow is in Global Spice. Sherwin Williams color are in Collections. If they are out of a particular color, there are smaller color swatches in the brochures at the bottom of each collection. Happy Hunting!

That reminds me! I don't know if this is new because of the covid, but Sherwin Williams will send you the chips for free!

https://colorchips.sherwin-williams....RBMuL5q8L_FeCM

Mkoch, I change the colors every year because I don't want my quilt to look like everyone else's. I always decide on what colors I want to use, then take a black and white picture of Bonnie's chips to determine value and make sure I have the same mix of light, medium and dark values. Most colors can be any of the three, depending on whether it is tinted or shaded.

The other factors I consider is having enough contrast between all colors since I don't know what will be touching in the finished quilt and making sure I really like the color that requires the most fabric, since it will be the dominant color in the quilt. It's a risk but I haven't been disappointed in the result yet and I've done 7 of the MQs. Good luck with your choices. .

If you do like her colors, quilted twins has a Grassy Creek fabric bundle on sale right now

https://www.quiltedtwins.com/shop/c/...-x53183586.htm

When I have made the mystery quilts I do not cut all the pieces in one clue. I wait until the block clue is given then cut the pieces to make how many I need for one block. I can see the contrast of fabrics this way in the different blocks. There have been many times I didn't like the colors at all so it was easy to swap fabrics before cutting them all up.

I use her colorway about 50% of the time. First, I look at the amount of each color; that helps determine which color, if any, will stand out more than the others. This year, red, gold and green all have the same amount; orange a bit less and gray twice as much! She mentions that her gold and orange will be next to each other, so those colors need good contrast. Taking a picture and making it black and white is helpful to see shades and contrast.

In 2013, I used almost this year's colors for Celtic Solstice. My greens aren't as bright; leaves here in the Finger Lakes aren't that bright this time of year. While I love Bonnie's quilts, I have only finished about have of the ones I started. :( I love making blocks, but don't like putting blocks together into tops. Am thinking about working on finishing a couple up instead of starting another - but where is the fun in that, lol.

Attached are pics of the original fabrics from Celtic Solstice, my finished Easy Street and En Provence, both with different colors than were suggested. En Provence, I was hoping that the green would be more prominent, but I still like it a lot.

I will be joining again this year, love Bonnie's mysteries! Haven't pulled any fabrics yet, but want to start with the tubs of scraps and not use yardage unless I really need to. And I do have lots of tubs of scraps so I may very well be able to do it.
I am wavering on the grays, but really like some of the fabric pulls I have seen on FB that used blue-grays.

I am in! Last year was my first mystery, finally got the binding on it just last month. I purchased fabric from a kit last year, and ended up having to buy more of the colors to have some for sets. I may go with another kit this year, I found I enjoyed not having to worry about my fabric choices and could focus on improving my skills. I am going to give the fabric shops a couple of weeks to put up the kits, and if I can't find anything I like, off to the fabric shop I go. I think I have enough gold and orange in my stash, probably all of the neutrals, and about half of the gray. I don't have any red in my stash, and only a little bit of the green.

Looking forward to joining you all!

peaceandjoy: Very pretty colors.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to participate. I will follow along on this thread whether I join in on the fun or not.

I want to join Bonnie's mystery but I'm not sure I am motivated to make such a big quilt when I don't know if I'll like it. Last one I did was 4 years ago and i quit 1/3 of the way through and then stopped quilting for a few years. I definitely bit off more than I could chew!

I want to see the colours people pick and maybe that'll help inspire me

joe’smom, thanks for starting this thread. Not sure if I’ll join in or just save the clues for a later time. I do like the colors she will be using. I’ll certainly follow along on this thread, no matter what I decide.

I am in the process of basting my Frolic! quilt and wasn't intending to participate this year, but Bonnie has been so excited about this quilt, that I may cave in. I have never done half of the blocks before, but I may try that this year. I usually follow Bonnie's color suggestions, but I'm not sure this time. It will be fun to see other's choices.

Leslie

Thank you Joe's Mom for starting and moderating this thread. I'm not sure about doing it either and would probably change up the colors - having just completed the Appalachian Autumn quilt with similar colors, I'm ready for a different color combo. I'm also waiting to see all the fabrics that others pull together and excited to follow along.

Thanks for the suggestions about color. I've been looking at pictures of past BH mysteries and really like the ones for "Frolic." I am leaning to kelly green, purple, blue, and an accent color (pink? aqua?) to substitute for orange. I don't think I'll wait to see how it goes before starting because some of the fun of this is its intensity and the anticipation of the next week's clue. I will enjoy seeing how everyone on this thread is doing as we go.

Hmmm...... I said Frolic was going to be my one and only. But I'm having second thoughts. The reason I didn't end up liking it was mostly the colors. I don't like this year's colors either so I may just do my own. I find the mystery part really fun.
So I think I'm in!

Hello everyone, |I’m in!!!! Yea?!!!!! I always look forward to doing her mysteries. And sewing with everyone.

I like most of the colors, so I decided to buy new fabrics. I know I don’t have enough red, orange, gray, or gold fabrics, since I used most of these fabrics in my current QAL’s off the internet. , I decided to switch out gray (which based on paint chips sample is a dark color), for a very dark brown. Instead of white I will use a medium light beige. An hour or so afterwards I found another color way (I have in my stash), I liked just as well. I’ll post pics when I get the fabric in the mail. Or I may just look for more fabric in my stash. Undecided which one I will use.????

Until then, I need to work on the top from last year, and a few other projects.

peaceandjoy, your quilts are beautiful!

It's great to see so many joining in! SusieQOH, I'm glad you're thinking of doing the mystery again this year even though you weren't happy with the outcome last year!

I'm really intrigued by the large amount of gray. I think I have pretty close to the 5 yd. required, although my biggest piece is not a true gray, but a piece of Japanese taupe that is more taupe, though it has gray leaves, so it may not work. I remembered that I have two more half yards of gray earmarked for another quilt, which I could pilfer if need be. I also have a bag of leftover gray strings from a project a few years ago, but I was trying to stick to blue-er grays that time, so not sure how useful they will be.

Thanks for that info - I just ordered my paint chips. Glad to know I don't have to make a trip to Lowe's.

I'm in!! This will be my first BH mystery quilt although not my first BH quilt. I've talked my walking buddy into joining me on this adventure. We are having fun looking at colors. She is going to stick to BH's suggested colors as this is her first quilt and she's not sure about how to choose colors. I've chosen colors of cranberry, red-orange, turquoise, deep gold, cream, and egg plant purple for the grey. Got my ideas for the colors off a shirt with a Southwestern flare so not quite fall colors but I like them and they seem to mesh well.

I like the colors this year, except the grey. I've little grey in my stash but I have a lot of browns. So I think I'll go that route instead.

Went to Lowes today to pick up color samples and ran into another quilter doing the same. We helped each other find the colors and had a nice little visit. (Masks on). So fun already. I liked Bonnie's suggestion to maybe buy a little something while there and although I feel I am pretty well covered in supporting Lowes since we have bought several major appliances there in the last few years, I did happen to find a couple things I needed. Good trip!

This will be my 3rd Mystery Quilt
 

A friend suggested Bonnie's Mystery quilt 2 years ago and I have learned so much from making my quilts. Bonnie is so good at showing you how to sew each clue step by step. This year I'm joining in because it will keep me busy safely at home, I miss my knitting group and other activities I haven't been able to participate in this year and probably the same for next year. So this year I'm especially happy to be involved in Bonnie's Mystery 💓

I haven't missed a MQ in 7 the last 7 years but think I'm going to give it a pass this year. It takes every bit of my quilting time trying to keep up during a really busy time of year, plus I have a couple of grandchildren quilts I need to focus on. I'll be watching you all and cheering you on (and of course saving the clues so I can make it later if I love the pattern!). Enjoy!