Frolic has been trimmed and staystitched. Now ready for borders, so happy! When I resized the picture it became slightly blurry.

I am so in awe of those who have finished!!! Beautiful quilts everyone! I also saw a lady today that had finished two Frolic Quilts!!! Oh my!

I have four more main blocks and one half block to do, then decide on my border. I am leaning on doing the Friendship Star I have seen on Facebook.

I think I am going to add my sashing strips to my blocks and half blocks also.

Decisions, decisions!! I am loving how it is turning out, and I am not in a hurry.

That's wonderful Tweety! Your fabrics all worked together so well, was that stash or bought specifically for this?? Are you going with the border as designed?

Despite my complaining about the setting triangle/waste fabric issue, I am enjoying this project especially as it nears completion. And like I said, before, I get the mystery aspects and why she had us do all those HST in the beginning even with the strong suspicion that they were going to be border (except I thought pinwheels, but I was close). Complainers like me are likely to go ahead with using them up but not willing to make them at this point in the project.

Since I am adding extra fabric to make my setting triangles, I think I am going to end up with 9 full extra blocks but my math has been off this whole time... I am still planning on slicing them in half and using them in the back, choosing the best variety of colors and workmanship for the top.

So this is what you need to add to make your non-pinwheel sets into 2 setting triangles instead of 1, should you wish to join me down the rabbit hole. You need two entire corner units each made up of a 4-patch, two neutrals, and 1 HST that you need to make (for a total of making two HST). Using the technique I've been using all along of an oversized square and drawing the line down the middle then stitching on either side of the line gives me both HST out of one each Refresh/Blue matching square. You also need those extra pinwheel pieces, again you need one square of each color cut in half. Since I cut oversized and trim down, I'm leaving them large until I trim the overall unit once it is assembled. At the end you have the two unused HST, I'm cool with that...

I have my top with all the sashings put together but can't decide on the borders. I want to put a one fabric border before adding the HSTs but I can't decide what color. I was thinking green but I don't have enough of any one green. So it's kind of berry, blue or neutral...
I did go with the horizontal layout and I'm very happy with it.
I have to make another comfort quilt. I have it all drawn up and the cutting figured out so maybe I'll put away the mystery quilt for a while and let the new quilt take over. The break might help me decide on the borders. :)

Wow, I love everyone’s blocks and the completed tops are all spectacular! I can’t wait to see more! I still only have 3 blocks done 🙃, but that’s ok, other things have taken priority and I hope to get back in the saddle soon. I’ve seen so many versions I wish I had stuck with a constant green, but either way I’m gonna be happy when it’s done!

Helen and Linda: very pretty tops!

Iceblossom: I love your creativity!

Beautiful, wildyard! I would suggest you audition the different border colors by pinning some fabric up under your top and taking photos. In the past I have used scrappy for an inner border when I didn't have enough of one fabric, so you might consider that if you want to try the green. I have seen the green and the medium blue used for the inner border on Quiltville (both looked good), but not the raspberry or dark blue.

Can anyone explain why we had to orient the partial block corner units differently on the half blocks, but they are all oriented the same on the first page of clue 9?

Yikes! Looks like I have to go back and look at the clue and then what happens when we put them together to make sure I'm ok, I made all my corners the same.

But, I did have a lot of confusion at first, thinking I had to make matched mirrored pairs of the corner units for the blocks-- because we did have to be careful with the corners of the quilt since we didn't actually make full corner units using the neutrals in the quilt corners

Confusing terminology, quilt corners and corner units!

But for me and my cutting extras, all of my corner units (4-patch, +2 neutral, +1 HST) are the same. I did some extra effort making them as mirror images in one go-around, but when you turn them around they are all the same, so no matter which way you start, you should be able to finish, the only difference is which way the seam goes in the back so long as you are using full units. If you are trying to leave out a neutral square, it matters.

The twisting and turning of these HST has been a continual confusion for me in this project, I usually "get" it pretty fast, but I'm still having issues with it.

Yay me, I have my setting triangles done, no extras. In another one of my math confusion, in order to make all my pre-cut sets into blocks, I'm going to have to make a few more sets of the 4-patch and cut some more neutrals. The good news is I had calculated correctly to get my extra pieces for the setting triangles.

I think I have 4 sets of extra blocks put aside that have those corner units already made. That might be enough for me to go ahead and commit to a layout, but knowing me I'll probably want to make all the extras first. But I'll look at the combinations, I want more red in the top so the pink ones can go to the back and be finished later, but I don't really know what I have left. I've just been pulling random sets from the box. It occurred to me after about my 4th set that maybe it would have been a lot easier to find those from easily matched fabric, instead of trying to match some of those hand dyes which vary from front to back and top to bottom as well. Some pieces are the same color but different designs. Some pieces are identical but just soaked a bit longer so the color saturation is just a bit different.

I really did not expect the issues I'm having with using the hand dyes (didn't expect to have to set them either but there you go), I thought I'd be able to use them like solids. So I learned a lot with this project and these fabrics.

I'll still finish those extra blocks but they will be for the back, I'd like to have this top put together by Valentine's Day -- not quilted, don't know when that will be but to have the top done, the back pieced, and the binding made. Then it goes into the to-be-quilted pile. Which is growing at an alarming rate....

edit/PS: If the blocks are completed as designed, the dark squares will form an X from the corners, through the 4-patch to the dark side of the Blue/Aqua HST. It is completed square to square with the sashing. I always had to double check that I was putting them on the same. If they aren't well that makes a more scrappy look. As designed, the darks make an X and the reds outline a circle.

Thank you Iceblossom and retiredteacher09. Yes Iceblossom, all scraps are from my stash (lots of them from previous BH mysteries). I love your hand dyes and the extra units you are making. I got confused reading your post, but loved the picture you posted. I can't wait to see what yours is going to look like.

All the pictures here and on the Quiltville site on FB are so beautiful and unique.

Linda, your top is beautiful!

Did anyone press the block corner HST/neutral, 4-patch/neutral seams away from the neutrals (rather than toward as the directions indicated) so the 4-patch seam would feed in pointing toward the needle? I find that 4-patches don't match up well for me when they feed in with the seam pointing away from the needle, even when meticulously pinned. I'm wondering if I should re-press and re-pin them all as opposed to having to pick and re-sew the roughly 70% that aren't matching up (with no guarantee that they will match up the second time around).

Debby Downer here! I am not having fun with this project!
There- I said it :)

I have spent the entire month of January consumed by it now going into February.

I have most of my half blocks done so I'm seeing the light at the end of this tunnel.

I have enjoyed our thread though and hopefully I will like the finished result.

Hang in there Susie! This was your first every mystery I think? And your first Bonnie Hunter project? You are doing great to be as far along as you are. Not my first mystery and I'm familiar with Bonnie's style but this is the first time of me doing this in real time. But yeah, I thought I'd be done with this top (and finished with my work-in-progress that just needs border) all by the end of January and now I'm just hoping for Valentine's Day.

If you are really not wanting to do it, put it all in a box, with the directions, and write notes to yourself on why you stopped and what you were having problems with. I think most of the problems most of are having are not with the design or instructions but the mystery aspect, in her finished non-mystery directions the process will be changed to reflect some of the realities. Well that and those darn geese!

The thread will still be here when/if you are ready to resume or next year's mystery even. I'm going to great lengths of silliness to use up my fabric by using more fabric so I don't end up with unused fabric... but I am doing it to myself and I could have been done now if I just followed directions, I just would not have been happy and we want to do what we have to do to be happy and have fun. Despite my grouchiness I'm going to be happier at the end.

Today in my small group I am pinning the second set of border units. Should be half the connections so I should have pins left this time, but it is a motivator for me to work on that part of the project. When I get home, I'm usually motivated to sew so maybe will get those extra blocks finished to see what I have. Not looking forward to another round of 4-patches and neutral cutting but I have plenty of scraps left for the blue/red and probably enough strips that just need to be subcut.

I have never bought a kit (although I have finished many UFOs started by others) and rarely follow a pattern even from a magazine, been designing my own projects most of the time I've been quilting. I'm inspired by things I see certainly, but usually design them to fit my style, vision issues, and size of fabric. Certainly there are things I would do differently or wouldn't do at all (like I rarely cut smaller than 2.5" for a bed sized quilt), but that's the point for me to do this, to learn something and be able to play along in a group setting. I knew in advance that I'd have my usual OCD-style issues, but again, I didn't expect quite so many from just my fabric.

So from the beginning, I knew I could be unhappy with the end result (which I'm not really, it just could have easily been better with my fabric on hand), but the outcome for me was always that someone would have a quilt out of it at the end -- and that it would be bright! I certainly have that, well the bright I have and the quilt is just ahead.

Thanks, Iceblossom. Yes, this was my first BH anything.
I'm finding the assembly tedious/boring. Maybe it's just me or the time of year, I don't know.
I don't usually make anything this detailed with a zillion pieces.
However, I'm not sorry I made it.
I'm going to stay with it and to "reward" myself send it to a longarmer to quilt it.
I know I'm going to have leftovers so I may do a scrappy binding. Not sure yet. Also not
sure how I'm going to do the borders. Not going to worry about that today.

Bonnie Hunter quilts are a special sort of thing. The are a million little pieces and usually come out looking beautiful. But they are really fiddly and very tedious. They are the same small thing over and over. I have put this project in time out for right now. As much as I actually love the final look of the 5 blocks that I have finished I do not have the patience to be this repetitive right now. My biggest issue right now is that even though I checked and checked each of my sub-units is just a smidge to big making the overall block a almost a half inch to big.

So I'm going to need to make each of the sub units of the overall 9 patch (That's how I think about it in my head) and trim them to size so I don't lose my points. This on it's own wouldn't be a big issue..... but the fact that I can only do one block at a time is what makes me want to pull my hair out. If I could just chain piece everything and then press and trim it would be better for me personally. But you can't because of the matching sets.

The whole thing is much more time consuming because I can only do one block at a time. So this quilt is in time out for right now. In the mean time I've made a ton of progress on a cross stitch that I've been working on for over a year LOL!!!

SusieQ, I'm sorry you're not having fun. Once all the excitement is over, there's a lot of work to do. Such repetitive piecing is not everyone's cup of tea. I know I will be very glad to get to something quicker and easier!

Today's a new day and I am ready for my last grand work party before all my extra blocks are done. I hope, can't be much more than that. Maybe tomorrow.

Unless I've miscounted I believe I will have 9 additional full blocks, that's the count for now anyway. From the "setting sets" I made one set into all four corners, then I've made enough into two setting triangles for all needed. To finish the extra blocks I need to make a few more Blue/Red 4-patch units, and cut some more of those neutrals. Mostly all I've been doing is adding one extra "Corner" unit (4-patch, 2 neut, 1 HST) plus two rays of the star for those setting triangles. For the remaining sets I do have to make all four corner units.

I did get my border units pinned at group, still used up most of my pins, last time it was just two per piece and this time it was 3. Even got them sewn, not pressed yet.

I only had 3 block sets completed ready to turn into finished blocks but got those done yesterday as well and have replaced 3 of the worst workmanship blocks, even though one of the new blocks had a horrible funky monkey goose, the rest of it looked better than the one I took out. Hoping to smooth out my colors some with some of the rest of these extras.

Plan is still to put them on the back, but dang, 9 blocks is the start of something of it's own.

I agree that Bonnie Hunter quilts can be tedious. I find that it is good for me to take the parts to a retreat to sew. Having others to chat with as you make a zillion units makes it seem to go so much quicker!

Suzieqoh, I’m sorry your not enjoying it, perhaps doing it in small doses will help, remember this is not a race and there are no rules regarding completion. I too get bored easily with some projects, tedium and repetitiveness are not my friends! I still plan to work on just a few blocks and sections at a time and I refuse to stress about it, it gets done when it gets done! Perhaps you can start another project to help you forget about all the tiny pieces. Hugs!

So I've finished sewing my block corner and geese units; it's now time for me to get back to the En Provence I need to finish, so I have cleared my wall and put all of my Frolic pieces away for the time being. Hopefully I'll get back to it before the new mystery thread goes up! I'll continue to check in here to follow everyone's exciting progress.

Hi everyone! Thanks for the kind words and encouragement! :)
I finished all the full and half blocks. Now on to the sashings.

I have a question:
From the photos of the reveal it looks like there are some small blue squares in the sashing strips but
I can't find any info.
Does anyone know? Or is it part of the finished design?
Thanks

On the last clue and reveal, there was an instruction to cut small blue squares, then they were not mentioned again. We figured out they were for the cornerstones in the sashing. They show in the photo but she doesn't talk about putting them in in the instructions.
That's how I used mine and I love the chain effect it gives along with those 4P and the neutrals.
The blue squares are 1.5".

The blue squares are the cornerstones in the sashing. They are mentioned in the reveal instructions fairly early on. I think you need to cut 40 1.5 inch blue squares if you are making the full size.

Thanks, everyone! :)

They aren't really a lot of directions on the cornerstones, but in the very first part of the reveal clue she says (numbers still edited out)
"From blue fabrics cut XX squares to be used as cornerstones between the sashings. I chose a multitude from my 1 1/2’’ squares box already cut. You can go with one piece of yardage, or make it as scrappy as you wish."

edited: Glad to see you already got the answer and that you seem to be doing better with the project today.

I didn't quite make yesterday but I will be done with the extra blocks today/shortly!

Iceblossom- yes, I finally saw the part about the blue squares. Duh! :)

I didn't want to put this project aside because I was worried that I'd never finish it.

Today I will do the sashings and the blue squares!

Part of the reason I'm so buggy about this project is that I've been making a lot of things for my baby granddaughter and this has stopped me in my tracks.
She's the only person I can think about these days haha

Susie, you are doing great! Do you usually make queen sized tops or usually smaller projects? Just that alone is a big difference in a project like this. I prefer queen-sized, it is where my design sense is. I do have problems making/designing small tops. And I haven't seen my grandbundle Leon since Christmas, we're going to be up to 6 months soon -- so much fun!

I had one of those middle of the night nights but I managed to get back to at least a light sleep for a bit. While I was up I frog stitched (rip it rip it) a set of red triangles I had put on the wrong side of the goose. Got this far in the process and this was the first time I had messed that up. But I was having one of those realizations that everything was starting to get harder and maybe it was a good time to quit for the day. Those feelings are generally correct and should be followed sooner rather than later.

So today I have 3 completed sets of subunits for blocks. I have 3 more sets that mostly just have to have the geese made. Estimated time to complete somewhere under 2 hours... If I was in a race probably more like 30 minutes, but hey I'm setting my own schedule here. Then I have those border units to press, and that's the plan for today.

The plan is to lay out the finished blocks tomorrow and select the keepers for the top. I'm going to try not to actually lay it out yet but look more for a pleasing balance of blocks that can be micro-tuned in the next step. I intend to put the sashing on two sides of each of my blocks randomly before final placement. I've done all the fiddling I can with color selection and stuff, it's time to go back to random.

I can get this top together without stressing myself out by Valentines!

Iceblossom- no, for quilts I prefer larger sizes.
But I've been making my girl all kinds of other things: knitted sweaters, hats, etc, a mobile- one with hearts for Valentine's Day that I got from the Bernina website, stuff like that.
I never got into lap quilts. They are just too small even though we aren't tall people by any means. I usually don't make anything smaller than a twin size.

I'm trying to stitch my sashings but Mookie is in my chair and won't get out haha!!! My husband rolls his eyes when I tell him I can't get Mookie to move :D

I am slooowly putting blocks together today. Sat down with a bluprint class on machine basics, and kept pausing and actually applying the concepts to my machine instead of just going oh I already do that. Turns out I didn't already do that. At least not enough to do it properly. Swapping out to a fresh needle and obsessively rethreading my machine half a dozen times somehow made a difference in how easy it is to get the long seams together. I also found the spot where the triangle seams were catching as the whole block is under the needle, and smoothed it off with tape. And fixed my tension, because my auto-tension apparently does auto-tension properly anymore.

I have one more place where the machine tends to catch right at the beginning of the seams (it actually tore a small hole in a flying geese block yesterday, so that has become a half-block), but I saw something on Bonnie's site where she suggests moving the needle all the way to the right when piecing the flying geese her way because the wide feed dogs on newer machines sometimes distort the tips of the triangles when sewing seams. She also suggested a single hole stitch plate, but I don't have one of those for any of my machines. I will try changing the needle position on the next block and see if it makes it any easier.

I'm getting there....slowly but surely. Definitely happy to be making progress!

See, Mookie needs a lap-sized quilt for themselves! Even 45" quilts can be strategically placed on the floor as pet-magnets, I swear it works!

Your post made me laugh!! Oh geez, Mookie and Baby have loads of quilts they occupy. They don't care whose name is on them haha! :D

Have to admit it felt good to get up today with all my extra blocks done. Nope, didn't get the pressing done for the border but that can wait.

After the hubby left for work I quickly transformed the bed into my design space and chose the blocks I am going to use. Looks like I want to go through my blocks one more time with a ruler and size them correctly. Pretty good but some jogs and dips I want to check out. Still have some good options in the not being used pile if there are issues. I'm pretty happy with my choices, there were only a couple of blocks that made me cringe and now they are going away.

Well, last night the hubby deserved a /bonk on the head. I was excitedly telling him about all the progress and that I was nearing the finishing line when he interrupted with "just how long is this going to take you anyway?". He's used to projects being turned around in under a month.

But I'm at that fun point where it all starts coming together rapidly. I've placed my blocks, I found that there is no ideal but that is part of the deal of scrappy. I did somewhat organize it with my brighter rings around the star in the center and the darker blocks around the edges.

I put the sashing on randomly on two sides of each block. Because I've been having problems visualizing these twists and turns I waited to put it on the setting triangles to make sure that wouldn't cause me any problems (it didn't). So I still have to put those on and then can place them. Since I have duplicates I'll divide it into two stacks (all four corners are identical). Because I have no floor or other space larger than my bed, I'll work on the diagonal corners. But again, nice for me to know that it really doesn't matter even if the two identical units land next to each other, it's so busy that isn't going to be something you notice.

Likewise, my border units are getting almost done. I caught myself before sewing too many units together, had to save out one set of 2, so there are 4 units of 6 this time and all the others are 8s. Short form, very few seams left and the math works out!

My inner border and outer border will look as designed, but I'm planning on using a miter down the corner. I'm going with whatever the "as-built" conditions are and using the coping strip inner border for fitting, no measuring. Well there will be a little math when I lay out the border to the bed of the quilt to figure out how big to cut the coping strip. I will be using one of the paler new Parakeet shades instead of yellow.

I realized today as I was laying out the top that I very rarely make square tops. I had enough extra blocks (or maybe still needed one more) to make it rectangular, but I quickly said "oh no way" to the idea of making more of the border/setting units. I'm not completely crazed, it just seems that way some times.

Oh Iceblossom !! You're teasing us with the progress report and all the details of how you are placing the blocks. I can hardly wait for the photos. And I am amazed at the amount of work you have put into Frolic. It has been a delight to read your comments each day.

What happens is that I come here when I take my coffee breaks, keeps me motivated to quilt instead of getting distracted by real life... so each day I typically get up early and put in a couple of hours in the project. Or at least I sort of do stuff for a couple of hours, I probably have as many breaks as work periods.

But here you go Carol, I put in fresh batteries into the camera and even managed to change the date (which defaults to 2007 btw) before I picked up/moved the blocks.

You can see laid out on my bed seeing the setting triangles is pretty hard, but getting them to stick in place is even harder. Whe I have sashing I find I get the best results by putting it on the blocks in an L shape. Sometimes you have to do what I call "long unwieldy skinny strip combined with long unwieldy block set" but I try to avoid that whenever possible.

So goal is still to have this done by Valentine's Day and posting here keeps me accountable for forward progress!

Iceblossom -- those fabrics are coming together beautifully. What a great job of dying and piecing!

Iceblossom: Lovely!

Iceblossom, that is dazzling!

Ice blossom, thank you for posting the picture; it is indeed dazzling, beautiful, and lovely as mentioned above. Your posts keep me intrigued and motivated to finish my blocks. I still have about 12 to sew together for an enlarged size, but it won't have near the color pop that yours does. Congratulations on a fantastic quilt.