Thanks for getting us started!

Can someone tell me simply what the mystery quilt involves. I have never done or participated in something like this. It does sound interesting but all of you know what you are talking about. Thanks

In any mystery quilt you never know what the final result will be until you already have it cut and many of the units stitched together. Bonnies are not simple, but are usually two blocks combined that make a flow through pattern.

Some are very simple, where you might just end up with 12 churn dashes or whatever block pattern then just sew them together. Those might be done over a day or three. Bonnies starts stitching the end of November, you get a clue every Friday, and it ends when she shows the reveal of her finished quilt. A few times they have gone into mid January, last few years they've ended on New Years day.

a Google image search for Bonnie's mystery quilts gives you an idea of what we've made in the past.
https://www.google.com/search?q=bonn...w=1364&bih=611
Bonnie is a scrappy quilter so if she is using a dark blue as one of the colors she will be using 20+ dark blues.
You can use just one blue, your choice. Or change the colors completely.

in the first or second post of this thread you'll have the link to her site with the fabric amounts needs.

NZquilter, I hope it works out that you can join in! I think what Bonnie said was that she'd be away during one of the clues, and that clue would probably be easier because she wouldn't be here to field questions.

I lucked out with the palette this year, as I could not be spending a lot on fabric and dark blues are my most plentiful group.

I suppose it's just as well that I did not have the chips this year, as I then would likely be disappointed with my subdued versions of the colors. This is the closest I've ever come to doing a Bonnie mystery from stash. I've ordered a few pieces of aqua and a constant green (I hope it works out; you never know when choosing by computer). My medium blues are very muted (except for that batik scrap), so I hope that won't be a problem. Do you think I should remove those two darker reds?

Bonnie will post one clue per week, starting on Black Friday. A clue consists of detailed directions for making a unit. There hasn't been anything overly difficult in the years I've been doing the mystery; I would say the challenge of Bonnie's quilts is in the number of something we're required to make, as her quilts tend to have lots of small pieces. Not everyone can keep up with the mystery schedule, and that's fine. We all finish at our own pace. Bonnie suggests that if you haven't finished one week's clue, go on to the next with everyone else so you can get the hang of making the unit.

It's such fun to share progress and see everyone's units. Bonnie also has a Facebook page, 'Quiltville's Open Studio,' where the sharing goes on.

Last night I reread Bonnie’s opening post and she mentioned that this quilt could be done with single fabrics in each color. My stash realistically gets me halfway to enough fabric so I need to buy. I am starting to contemplate making it out of one fabric that I love in each shade. She also mentions using a very pale pink in the background which I would possibly prefer.

Mumto2, I made last year's out of blender fabrics and loved the look. It was the first time I actually purchased fabrics for the Mystery. The only place it threw me off was one color, orange. Bonnie required strings being made out of several oranges and I just cut one rectangle in one color. The look was great but oh, the extra orange fabric I had left over. Luckily, I live in FL where orange is everywhere.

I will be taking that class too! I’m taking the classes on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and can’t wait!

Quilted Twins has a kit for the entire quilt online, as does one etsy store. But my stash has enough. Some 2” strips, some 2.5” strips, some 10” squares, and some pieces under 1/4 yard. Ya think I just might have too much fabric? Might need a little more green; we will see.

mopec, we also share fabric choices trade tips or alternate construction. About midDec, people start guessing how the final quilt will look. It is a lot of fun.

That makes three of us QBoarders in BH's Ship classes. We must do lunch! I'm local and I know where all the quilt shops are in the area. Search on this board for "Legendary Tour". Its a write up of QV and my tour of 13 shops.

Since I already take Parkinsons meds and have cut off a good portion of my left index finger with a rotary cutter, I will be cutting everything on the accuquilt. I hope she will tell me which die I need. She did make a comment that if she were to reveal the accuquilt die to be used for the mystery, it would give it away. I'm not really safe with a secret, but I sure hope I already have the die.

My first Bonnie mystery quilt was the last one Good Fortune. I enjoyed being able to use up scraps and don’t know why it took me so long to look into these. I’m definitely going to work on the Frolic one. I love the colors and have plenty of scraps and stash to use up. It is fun for me to use up scraps ( that never seem to diminish) and put together something I never would have dreamed of doing on my own.

I just shopped my stash and other than deciding on one constant green or the assortment or greens, I’m pretty happy with what I found. I may dig trough my neutrals again and pick out ones with prints, I certainly welcome any feedback and suggestions with ones that scream No. All Batiks except background fabric, looking forward to doing this.

Some of you may already know that Bonnie's beloved, Sadie Jane, crossed rainbow bridge early this morning. If it were me I know it would be hard to forge ahead with excitement about MQ. So hard....Let's all show her we understand and care about her...I know we will.

Tallchick - I love your batiks and think that will make an outstanding Frolic :) I used all batiks for ORL and was very pleased with how it turned out. This is such a fun time watching all the color/fabric selections!

i love your selections and wish I had enough batiks to do it in all batiks,

Thank you so much for your reply KalamaQuilts. I will "investigate" further.

I like your colors. I was thinking the quilt would looked pretty somewhat subdued.

Great colors tallchick! These colors are growing on me. I may not change afterall.

you can check out the Quitingboard thread from last year for info too. https://www.quiltingboard.com/quilti...e-t300618.html

This is a fun time and I think we all learn so even following along without sewing works. One big plus is seeing the same quilt with different fabric choices...I feel I learn a lot from that but also people will share what techniques are working for them and help each other here on the forum.

Pagzz, that's such a good point about learning from seeing the finished quilts, both the different fabric choices and the way people modify the pattern. That's one of my favorite parts of the process.

tallchick, your fabrics look great. I prefer the second photo, with the variety of greens.

I am so tempted because I really like the colors. My only other mystery was Grand Illusions and I really disliked the reveal. (It's still a UFO and I need to see if I can rescue it with a modified layout).

I might follow Bonnie's advice and only make 12 units of each - enough to create a few blocks and then fill in the missing units once it is revealed.

Last week I picked up a big bag of someone's hand dying fabric binge at the thrift store. I recognize what it is because I had one of those once too...

Not enough neutral/pales, so maybe I'll tie dye/tea dye some solid white 100% cotton fabric I have to make those. It was a heck of a deal I wasn't going to pass up (the entire bag was only $7.99!) and it seems to me pretty darn perfect for this project. I find some wonderful things in my thrift shopping.

I also have another lady in my small group who went through a hand dye phase, will ask her if she has any lights.

I do also have a nice light tan/yellowish batik for a consistent neutral... it is definitely more patterned than the hand dyes, but it is subtle.

Wow! I haven’t gone through a hand dyed phase yet so that looks like a real treasure to me. I’m surprised that I haven’t....I did tie dye and sold at my local Saturday market so I already have all the dye supplies and such. Maybe the urge will strike next year.

I love the quilting and I love fabric of all sorts. I played with a bunch of different techniques for a couple of years maybe 20 years ago? Dying whole solid cloth in the washing machine, tie dying in the microwave, bleach processes, batik and wax processes, all sorts of things. I've been know to take a marker and draw on fabric too. Once it was a large apple blossom white on white and I "highlighted" the white outlines with black marker. But I've just added dots of color here and there to make things play a bit nicer together.

And back in the days of Tri-Chem, I don't know how many people remember that stuff but I loved it... used to make little punk/new wave baby t-shirts for my friends with bright colors and angular designs.

I guess I'm committed to being in on this project, didn't really need another one right now but when has that ever stopped me?

I went back to the site and wrote down the yardage amounts and color groups. Probably start ironing and putting together color groups around Monday. I don't really like to iron (hate it!) but that bag needs it so I'll do it in sporadic bursts between sewing on my current donation project which is small and will be quick.

Iceblossom, I remember tri chem! Loved it, do they still make it? It was fun, kind of relaxing too. What a lucky find you have. I would just make sure that those colors dont run too much. Maybe take a couple out and test them since they are hand dyed.

I enjoy looking at the fabric choices.

Iceblossom: My husband was much better at using Tri-Chem than I was at it. My sister got us involved.

Was definitely going to test the fabrics, they feel like they were properly treated and I'm hoping for stable washing. I know some of the things I did set the fabrics very well, like doing them in the microwave. Besides, they would probably iron better after getting softened up.

Looked up Trichem -- it's still in business! Seems to be set up for classes/direct marketing. Tubes look better designed. I wonder what ever happened to my Christmas tree on black flock piece, hadn't thought (or seen) of it in years.

I sold Tri-Chem! Back in the 80s - I was pretty successful as party plans go, had a team, drove a company car...

Iceblossom, we've followed so many of the same paths. You missed doing the sun resist dying on the lawn, and leaf pounding?

Well... it happens that just last week one of the ladies in my small group gave me some of the light sensitive blueprint type fabric, she didn't store it well (took it out of the black bag) so it might not be reactive any more. And I've done quite a bit with screens and leaves and ferns and nature shapes as well as natural dyes. I'm guessing my dying phase was for about 5 years closer to 30 years ago, it's been awhile!

I'm just really lucky that I didn't get caught up in stamping stuff, I'm seeing tons of those in big bags for cheap at the thrift stores. My son and I did use things like vegetables and cooky cutters and things like that.

I've been looking at that collection and I'm thinking I will need to change "Neutral" with "Yellow" and use an artificial dye. The lady in my group is going to see what/if any she has in "yellow tinted tan to bright school bus + orange" for me.

I pulled out the batik and was surprised by my immediate and definite no way! While I do have some hand dyes in my batik box that I can use (especially a good green), can't happily use a pattern with those hand dyes even subtle.

Originally I was thinking of a thick block log cabin with those hand dyes, just picked it up as a bag too good to pass up and then came along this project.

PS: This desire to mess with things started before quilting. I think it was phosphates in detergents which are no longer allowed and that fluoresced very brightly. You could thin Tide (and other detergents) with water and paint designs on a white wall that only showed in black light... and then there was the lemon water notes (shows up when you heat the page).

I have been quilting for about 6 years and am an advanced beginner or maybe intermediate now. I have never participated in a mystery quilt before and am wondering if I can handle not "seeing" what I am making. Also, I am not "tech savvy" to be able to get onto the blog or forum or whatever you call it where you can talk to others. I love the colors of this year's quilt and would like to try it. Do I stand a chance with my limited computer knowledge??

sails, if you go to this website www.quiltville.blogspot.com on the day after Thanksgiving, you will get the first clue. What was released (intro of colors and yardages) on Thursday can be found on that website under the Frolic Mystery tab near the top of that page. Subsequent clues will be released weekly until the final reveal. Print or save the clues before Feb 1st at which time they are removed and become either a pattern for sale or for future book publication.

Sails, the nice thing about something like this is that there will be a lot of different people with a lot of different skill sets, as well as fabrics as you are seeing in the thread! You can go at your own pace. We aren't going to be exchanging blocks, just making our own.

Typically you get some homework to do between each hint, like make 75 9-patches or whatever it is with clear directions, measurements, etc. Some people do all theirs right then and there as the hints drop, others plug along, and still others don't even start yet at all for various reasons.

As mentioned, you can buy one fabric of each color if you haven't accumulated stash or you can use this as an excuse to go hog-wild in the fat quarter section of your favorite shop.

I'm a bit nervous about how mine is going to turn out using bright yellow instead of neutral -- but there is only one way to find out! I have the fabric, I have the time. If I don't like it, well it will get donated and keep someone warm. And it is true, usually I drag my friend Barb into things like this so there is usually someone with crazier fabric than mine -- but even without her someone always does something remarkable like making a pale watercolor version or something that is outside the norm but outstanding.

Joe's Mom thank you for your inspiration and all of the fabric shop links. I have a decent stash, just have to go through it, when I'm still in the process of unpacking from a home renovation. I found out about whittles and ordered the neutral and dark blue bundles. I'm always short on neutrals and often dark too.

I love the fabric assortment you have. It will make a beautiful quilt.

QuiltingVagabond: Sounds like you really enjoyed selling Tri-Chem! :). I can’t remember if my sister sold it or just had the connection. She has a natural ability for painting and crafty things and that’s probably why she enjoyed Tri-Chem. I just didn’t get that particular gene, I guess. Lol. We do both sew though.

I am sure that you will be able to, you found us didn't you? With tech, you generally only need to know 'what you need to know'. Bonnie Hunter has a presence on Instagram and Facebook, are you on either of those? Follow this link https://quiltville.blogspot.com/ and scroll down until you see a box to subscribe. Just below that are a few icons, the second one is Facebook, the third is Instagram. Click on those and you are taken straight to her pages where you can choose to follow her. You can often find 'tutes' on Youtube explaining how to do these things too.

Our libraries often have free sessions to help people with basic tech, do yours? Once you have a go, you will surprise yourself at what you can do. I've been long retired, so am not speaking to you as a young techie. Start a thread to ask us if you need any more help. :thumbup:

Kp, I'll be in those classes too! We will have to figure out a way to recognize each other. :wave:

Just want to offer help to any Seattle area lurkers. I'm actually in Renton but I'm available days for quilting related issues, shopping/stash help, whatever!

It can be hard for some people to jump in the first time. This would be a good first time :)

Here’s my 1st selection of my fabric. I wanted to use up my multicolored leaf fabric. So I picked out fabric that were in this piece. I don’t care for yellow, etc yellow, so went with what I found. So I’ll see how it turns out. I’m planning on a king size to fit my bed. [ATTACH=CONFIG]619279[/ATTACH] I’m looking forward to see others choices in fabric. Only 3.5 more weeks. On to washing and ironing my fabric.