I started but realized I forgot to use the light blue color in my four patches. Looks like I will tearing what I have apart. I only did half of the amount. If I make some strips with light blue, then I will have the entire set of 4 patches.

I thought you could use either blue? So if you make the other 1/2 with the light blue you should be good! (Unless you only wanted a total of 1/2 the units....)

Love all the 4 patches everyone! Candy is a perfect way to describe them! I don't think I'll be able to get started until next weekend...so guess I'll be doing 2 clues at once!

This is a quick finish for me. I plan to turn my attention to preparing a binding tomorrow. I have come down with a sore throat today; hopefully it's gone by next clue day!

Everyones 4 patches look gorgeous. I'm loving these sweet raspberry/blue pieces. Sorry no pictures yet.

I thought I did about a million 4 patches yesterday and when I counted I only had 30 something!!! I'll post a pic later today.

oohhh! all your little four patches are fun! Still trying not to start until I get the quilt off the long arm and the borders on another top....did wind the bobbins for the longarm...and cut the borders for the top....oh..and now that blizzard finally hit...and there is soooo muchhhh snowww....I have already shoveled my back door four times so far so my little cairn terrier could go out in do his business...he is not impressed with the snow....this morning, most of my windows are covered with snow...good day to stay in a stitch...but I do have to do a bit of shoveling...my snowplow man probably will not make it to my house until tomorrow....so I am snowed in....got lots of food...cooked a huge roast...so...I am going to stith! (err...unless the power goes out)

Sewingpup, I could get the image of snow, little dog, quilting and a roast for dinner. What a nice cozy description. Hope your power stays on!

SusieQOH, I'm with you... I counted carefully as I was cutting the first time but I carefully cut just half the number of total units. Then I came up a few short again. I think this time I will have enough units! Goal is to get them done before my Sunday morning bowling date.

Thought I was pretty much done Friday afternoon -- and then I counted!

I'm starting to think we should have a home for "Bonnie Hunter" wayward toys, those of us whose eyes are already off the prize, LOL...although maybe I'm alone in this, LOLOL.

My rejected 4-patches have turned into a border for an applique I'm thinking about doing....and no, I've never done applique! But even though I've rejected my pieces, it's inspired my quilting. And that's what it was supposed to do, right, inspire?

So far so good![ATTACH=CONFIG]620395[/ATTACH]

Nice colors

All the four patches are quite lovely. And they are all so different and yet the same. I'm done with mine, although I'm only making half I felt like I was swamped with the little critters!

Pretty four-patches, all of them. Fun to see the different fabrics made up. Can't start mine yet. I've developed scar tissue on the new lenses I got after cataract surgery. My vision is not good enough for cutting or sewing right now. Really barely good enough to read computer screen, but I can enlarge it. Then it is large and blurry instead of small and blurry:) I can still pet the fabric I have picked out! Scheduled laser treatment on Tuesday for one eye and then the other a week later. So hoping that helps, of course. I haven't been able to really sew since end of October. Really missing it!

I like the orange. Can’t wait till tomorrow when everyone is at school and work so I can get started.

Surprised myself and finished clue 1 yesterday! I'm working like crazy on log cabin blocks and threw these in as leader enders.

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suern3, so sorry you aren't able to sew right now. I hope your laser treatment goes well!

SusieQ, your 4-patches are glamorous!

armybandvet, very pretty!

Gosh, I'm struggling so much with the colors....I have never seen a Texas Bluebell in person, so I decided to do some research. I found this link:

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/lo...b-a1798f9626be

I decided that the Scanda is actually more of a periwinkle than it is gray. Additionally, the Dress Blues shows more of a navy blue (IMO), however, the Texas Bluebell is actually much lighter...... Add this to my already-challenged-with-color issues, and I have now picked my colors at least 3 times.

Also, taking photos of my selections show a much different color and look than the naked eye. The camera doesn't lie, does it? No wonder I'm struggling!! ugh.


Here's what I have so far. But that might change. I must be the only person still working on colors after the first clue has been released. Anyone else out there still struggling?

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And here's a black and white to show value and contrast.
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Everyone's colors are so beautiful! I can't wait to start cutting and sewing clue #1 tomorrow.

I'm with you Girlfriend, I have struggled with this one. So much that I'm just kind of hanging around looking at all the great 4 patches for inspiration. Still considering red and blue instead of red and raspberry. I even took the chips to the store and gathered the colors on bolts in the shopping cart and couldn't pop and purchase yardage. That's why this Mystery is so great, it's different every year. At the end, they always look wonderful. Keep going everyone, looking good.

You know, I am getting overwhelmed by all these 4 patch units. Last night after everything was done I put about 50 together. I'm spacing it out. A little here, a little there. It seems to be working. I now have almost 100 so I can see the end is not too far away.
I want to make the whole thing as it's my first mystery. But I don't like making a million of something so if I space it out I think I can do it.
This is such a busy time of year and I have many other things going on. Hopefully I can stay on track.

SusieQOH, last year was my first time making the mystery along with everyone else. It helped me to at least get all the pieces cut and put in the project box when each clue came out. Cutting is not my favorite thing to do, so I'm a thousand times more likely to pick it up and sew as I get the time if the pieces are already cut and waiting. I was able to finish some clues quickly, before the next clue was released. Sometimes I didn't get the time to sew more than a handful of units between clues. I have to steal sewing time in bits and pieces around everything else and this helped me feel somewhat productive even when I didn't have many completed units to show for it.

Ok, my units are all counted and sewn, starting this morning with pressing. I've decided to keep the more yellow toned "reds", it's going to happen with batiks or hand-dyes that colors range. As it is, my dark "blue" is just dark, there are greens and purples in there too, as there are in the medium/skada.

I don't know if it will hold through the completion of the quilt, but this is my song while working on step 1.
Rocco Duluca/Colorful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_6A4G6nDxw

Ok, units are pressed and I'll take a break, go get the car tabs and then come back and go back to my other project :)

I'm having quite a bit of difficulty seeing a lot these well on my green mat, think I'm going to have to switch out with a white mat.

I scattered them on a white piece of batting to get the colors better, they look quite a bit different on the brown kraft paper I usually use for my photo backdrop. The "reds" range from yellow to brown. Some of those squares that look so black are typically dark purple.

I've put them in a reused fruit cake tin, seemed like an appropriate storage item.

Yes, I've also been following the 4 patches already done, trying to decide how to make the colors that I have go together. I went back and read her directions again in the Introduction, and the chips are ranges of colors. So perhaps I've been taking too literal. For example, "Framboise! (A fancy French word for a color family of fuscia to raspberry!)". So I need to go back and pull more of a range, instead of just that color. I always learn so much about color from doing these mystery quilts.

I do think if you choose to do the red/blue or red/raspberry, either way your quilt will be beautiful.

I had eye surgery on the 17th, still blurry here too (((suern)))

I settled on 30's fabrics and about 1/3 of the units. too cute to be legal.

Girlfriend, I think your fabrics are pretty great. The only thing I'd do is take those two mediums out of the dark, you can see them in the black and white picture, top right corner, not the edge but next to the edge. I think the dark with the light print on the bottom row that lights up in the B&W picture is fine in the darks.

You are keeping pretty tight to the paint chips, sure you can expand your colors a bit if it makes you happy. Go look at her assortments, I don't think most of them actually fit the paint chip. I love your aqua/refresh btw, and I think your reds are spot on!

Girlfriend - your colors are marvelous!!! I think you got it! :thumbup:

Bluebonnets (not bells) can range from almost navy at the bottom to light blue towards the top. When you look at a field of them they look lighter blue due to their white tips. But a single one has a wide variety of shades, so really any shade blue will work.
This is a pic I used in my Easter card a few years ago. The red is Indian paintbrush. But if you look at the bluebonnets you can see the variety of blues.
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Girlfriend, I've learned since my first mystery that Bonnie's paint chips are often quite different from her inspiration photos/descriptions and from her fabric choices. I think maybe with the paint chips, she is wanting to give a precise palette that works optimally, since people will be using it to choose fabrics and because not everyone has a comfort level or expertise in choosing colors. For example, suppose you took a chip that was closer to how you perceive the main bluebonnet color (it seems brighter and more purple to me than the dress blues chip). That replacement chip might not look quite as good with the other paint chips. But when the chips are translated to a range of color in fabrics, that precision doesn't matter so much. I think the other factor is probably contrast. The paint chips may represent the optimal value contrast for the pattern, but it works with a range of values, just like the color.

This year I was really trying to use stash and not spend too much on fabric. I had lots of the navy blues, so I decided to stick closely to the chips. If I had been prepared to buy a lot of fabric this year, I might have gone with the look of the photos rather than with the chips. I think your fabric choices are wonderful!

I love everyone’s colors :)

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here’s my clue 1. All done except the squaring up. I really like how easily the seams spun. I had no idea it made a difference which way you put the unit through! I sure hope my colors end up working out. I tried to follow the paint chips but went mostly with stash so we will see.

Pamela, those look wonderful!

Girlfriend, you are far ahead of me. I have one fuchsia and one blue picked out. On the other hand, I will not be starting my efforts until February, so I figure I have time. You have some beauties in your selection.

I am going to start my squares today, and hopefully finish them tomorrow! I hope the next clue isn't very complicated or time consuming, because I won't have another day off until next Thursday. I hope it is something I can get done in one day...I don't want to get behind.

All of the pictures have been inspiring me to get moving...thank you!

Girlfriend and PamelaOry, your fabrics and 4 patch blocks look wonderful.

SusieQ, I remember my first BH mystery a few years back (Allietare) and how crazy it was especially trying to fit sewing into the month of December...just take it one step at a time and have fun. I don’t think I finished mine until late the following year.

!!!! If I want to make half size (41x41) quilt, do I just make half the number of blocks? Sorry, math is not my strong point. I know in other BH mysteries I would have thought to only do half the number, but when folks figured out the math, it turned out to be another number.

Thanks in advance to our mathematicians. I sooooo appreciate your help.

ILovetoQuilt, you could start out with 1/2, then at the reveal you would be able to tell precisely how many more units you would need. I think it would depend on the quilt. If I recall correctly, 3/4 was a good number for a smaller En Provence.

I completed sewing my required strip pieces together. I just need to cut out a few more purple stripes to make extra blocks for enlarging the top. I'll post pics when I have the required done.

I'm also working on finishing a Halloween top still putting together 4-Patches and 1/2 squares for that project. My other project is a RWB top for my Niece. On this project I need to just put together 28 stars and square up 28 1/2 square triangles and then I can put the top together and I'm done. Then it is happy quilting time.

The full size quilt is 82x82, about 6700 square inches. A 41x41 quilt is just under 1700 square inches, 1/4 the size. One-third of the units should be enough. Half will be more than enough—you can put any extra units on the back. It all depends on the layout—I am doing half and hope to get a wall hanging about 55” square.

It's really fun to see all of your pretty 4 patches! I love lurking here. I've decided I'm just not into the mystery, myself, but will watch to see what all of you are doing. Looking great, so far!