I cannot claim original credit for most of the hand dyes, I bought a huge bag at the thrift store for $7.99! Sadly they had been starched but the dyes never properly fixed. I've been at home for the last two weeks while my car has been in the shop and I have been boiling the fabrics to heat set them and removing the excess dye. I think Rit dyes were definitely used but others I'm not so sure, pretty sure inks were also used. Most of the fabrics are cottons but some are rayon, they require different products to both dye and treat. The yellows look more orange in the photo, I made some of them myself using Rit Golden Yellow, because I'm a glutton for punishment and still have some white ready to be treated I might get some Lemon Yellow too.

If I had not been home without a car I would have given up on this project after the first day! When you look at each color pile, that's about 6 hours of boiling and washing and treating. Would not have been near the effort had it been done correctly for the products/fabrics used at the time of dying.

One of the ladies in my small group also went through a home dying phase and she still has plenty of the various chemicals along with Retayne and Synthrapol and I think I'm going to take her up on them to fix the rest of the bag. It's been at least 20 years since I got rid of my own supplies so I've been using heat, vinegar, salt, and lots of water.

Edit: I'm much more about using natural materials for dying and was originally going to just tea dye/vegetable dye the neutrals but with the artificial dyes of the colors, I decided that would just dull everything down and decided to go with school bus yellow to orange instead.

I always enjoy the people who go outside the box on their selections for a mystery quilt, and it just so happened I had a big bag of fabric in the right tones and an opening on my quilting schedule so this time I get to be one of the outliers -- wish me luck!

These are the colors I have, so far. Not much of a stash, so I have been shopping the local sales, mostly. I didn't include neutrals in the picture. That is one thing I have, plenty of neutrals. After I took the pictures with my phone, I see the colors are not really true. The raspberries are more purple than red. I did put the samples with the fabrics, so maybe that will help. Thanks for any feedback.

I think I have my fabrics. Toppling over but what else is new? They are the ones on my ironing board.

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Looks like everybody is getting there. I know I'm getting super excited and can't wait for the first clue. I love all the fabrics. This is going to be so much fun! In the meantime, is everyone ready for Thanksgiving?

suern3, your fabrics are lovely! You might want to watch out for that first med. blue being too light, and possibly the second (lightest) red as well, depending on what it winds up next to.

Wonderful fabrics, SusieQ!

Iceblossom, I'm so impressed -- with all your hard work and with your brilliant colors!

Howdy! I found my fabric! I need to take a picture, but I decided to swap some colors out. I'm excited about my choices and looking forward to next weeks clue! :thumbup: Oh...and my mom is giving me money to buy a new sewing machine...so I'm shopping for that on SAturday! Wahoo!

Kristi, so exciting! Let us know what you got.

Thanks, Lisa!

It's been a while since I've been on the board, but decided to check out this thread. I read all nine pages! Last year although I picked out the fabrics I didn't make the quilt. But this year since it is Texas themed, I'm in. My colours are not quite the same as Bonnie's and I'm using yardage, but I think they play well together. Plus the colours are the same value as Bonnie's. I decided against the aqua and substituted yellow daisies. Bonnie was here towards the beginning of bluebonnet season, but had she been here a month later she would have seen loads of yellow along with the blue and orangy-reds of the Indian paintbrush and Indian blanket. Please let me know if you think something doesn't work.
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Lovely array of colours. I see you are substituting yellow for aqua -- I'm doing the same. As to the reds -- they are a similar colour to winecups which grow at the same time as bluebonnets, so you are true to nature's colours.

I usually do 1/3 to 1/2 the units to end up with a large throw -- Bonnie uses such small pieces and hundreds of them that I usually don't want to make that many, plus I don't make large quilts. Since this quilt is supposed to end up at 82" square, I'm going to make 1/3 the number of units. I'll add more later if needed and/or add borders. Many times Bonnie incorporates a pieced border into the quilt but we don't know that until the very end.

Was thinking...oops that can be dangerous...that I may swap out the aqua for yellow (I have way too much yellow in my stash) but I will not be making any part of the quilt until the reveal. Yes, I am a party pooper!

Love everyone's fabrics!

Iceblossom....your hand dyes are to "dye" for! Glad to hear you got them stabilized finally.

One week to go until Clue #1...

Everyone who is swapping out colors are so brave. I totally cant do that, my anxiety would go through the roof. Lol, silly I know. I love seeing what everyone is going to do. Will post a pic of mine when hubby gets back.

Belfrybat, your colors look lovely!

I wound a bunch of bobbins yesterday, and gave in and ordered 4 pieces of brighter red to enliven my reds.

Here is my inspiration. I took this pic 3 years ago near Marble Falls -- near the center of the Bluebonnet Trail. Bluebonnets in the foreground, then Englemann daisies and Indian paintbrush.
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Belfrybat--Marble Falls isn't a visit without coffee at the blue bonnet café. I use to have quite a bit of family there. Long drive but so worth it. Have a great day.

Kathryn

I am doing the challenge this year; doing a sew-along is on my quilting goal list for 2020, but it still counts if I start it early, right? ;) I am hoping to finish my current project this weekend so I can stay in time with the clues.

I tend to buy by projects and my stash doesn't have nearly enough fabric for the quilt (nevermind in the right colors!), so I ordered a curated bundle from a vendor on etsy. It should be here tomorrow, and I can't wait to see what I get!

Seeing everyone's fabric choices makes me really exited for how all of these quilts turn out!

I don't mind staying within her colors for this only because I choose my own for the other things I make. I'm really excited about this project! It will be fun to see each other's work. This is my first BH Mystery.

Here are my fabrics! I used the Dino fabric to pick out the colorway. I'll either use the dino fabric as some type of border or the backing. Aren't they just the cutest???? I make quilts for the Linus project, so I wanted something that I could donate when I"m finished. I'm planning on making 1/3 of the units and see what size that will get me.

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Nice pic Bellfry Bat and Kristi I like your colors. So many cool fabric choices have been posted. I am ready to start!

On her blog she declined to include the die information for using an accuquilt machine. Will she include it with the clues do you think or will we be on our own to figure it out?

Pam,
It was mentioned previously that she won't include the dies. There are a couple of us here on the boards that will help coordinate the dies. Do you have individual dies or the cubes? Do you have the strip dies?

Kristi - great colour choices. It's making me reconsider my green. I wanted a bright "grassy" green but tried to stay within her values. Hmmm. Thinking.....

I agree! I used to live about 30 mins from MF. Miss the area a lot.

In person, at a recent Bonnie Hunter class, she was asked about the Accuquilt dies needed for Frolic. She responded that she would not include instructions about which one to use for any clues of her mysteries. She said it gave away too much information and ruined the secret involved in a mystery. She wouldn't tell the one person who asked her either-- I suppose she believed the person might tell others.

. I have the 12 and 6 in cubes and a few individual dies. I have a 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 strip dies. Thank you!

Kristi, your fabric combo is wonderful!

I wonder what color group we will use first, and what kind of unit we will make. Less than a week to go!

I'd really love to see some of the packs acquired from quilt shops and such. That seems like it would be such a fun box to get...

If there is anyone still on the fence and who would like the paint chips, I have one set I can send. But part of the fun for some of us is making what we have available work and as you can see we have some wide interpretations of the existing colors and fabrics. All I know about mine is that it will be bright. And the colors won't run! What I saw as potential in the bag of fabric was a very masculine and bold wide log cabin in browns and greens, as it turns out the fabrics for this project are really the leftovers from that initial idea.

Doing this sort of project with this sort of fabric is a huge step for me, usually I am pretty control freak in my projects. I run mystery projects more than I do them! But on the other hand, I donate more tops than I gift or keep, so the worst case is that some one is kept warm and that is not a bad outcome at all. Other than my time and effort and a few supplies, I'm only out a few bucks with these hand-dyes. I'd be a lot more control freaky if I was paying $14/yard for my fabric!

I also have the luxury of time to sew with very few other demands put on me and this project came along at a good time so I expect I'll be doing the steps as released, but the nice thing is that nobody sets our schedules but us. You can wait and see and do it later and chances are there will still be other people doing it about the same pace as whatever you set for yourself. Or you may just wish to put your time into other projects entirely, but still come in and check out what happens as the year progresses.

Kristi, I like your colors and inspiration fabric. Cute! Very nice idea to be able to use it for a donation quilt and have the fun of the mystery quilt.

Jumping in
 

I bought fabric at Joann's today. I bought what was needed I don't have a stash for it. And I can't get the pictures to post. But I like my fabric. Looking forward to it

I'm looking forward to next Friday and our first clue! Plus, Thanksgiving will be over with and my house will be back to normal - yippee!

I got my set of fabrics from quiltedtwins.com; I'm going to be subbing out with fabrics from my stash that are closer to Bonnie's colors.

From left to right in the photo:
1st column - perfect neutrals
2nd column - the fuschia/raspberry fabrics really missed the mark. The first fabric is really light, and the second and third have a rust background. The fourth and fifth will work as the lightest of that color grouping. The greens are good colorwise; I'll have to see how the middle one works as it is directional.
3rd column - I'm not quite sure what to think. The first three are supposed to be aqua, the second three are supposed to be light blues and the last five are supposed to be darks. I'm going to use the first three as part of my neutrals or not at all; the second three as aquas; the third three as light blues and I'll replace the bottom two with darks that are more like darker versions of the light blues. I expected them to lean a bit more purple than turquoise, and both the background and the print on them is very turquoise.

I'll pull some other fabrics as soon as I can and show you what I come up with, but I'd love your input on if I'm on the right track.

I'll probably stick with my own stash in the future; I was trying to save myself some time!

Thanks all!

My stash box came today, from a fabric store over in western iowa. It was a bit pricey, but these are all nice quality fabrics, and they look to be store cut, so I am hoping for more uniform cuts than I get from the fat quarters at joann's. What I like the most about all of it is that none of these are fabrics I would have picked myself, so I am really stepping out of my comfort zone a bit, and excited to do so!

I really like that there are a few shades in each color that don't quite match the others...I am too afraid to make that kind of choice on my own atm. I may add another fq of light blue or two from my stash to add a little more variety.
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I was afraid of ordering a kit without knowing which fabrics were going to be in there. I agree those rusts don’t go at all.

I won't be back from Thanksgiving until Friday night. That's the day it starts, right? I don't want to miss anything! :)

Yes, the first clue will be posted probably by 8:00 on Friday morning.

Thanks for posting the photos of the fabric packs. It is fun to see how different places interpret the colors.

OK, I give in. I will give this a try. I like mystery quilts but BH scares me with all the tiny pieces. Last year a dozen of my guild sisters made the BH quilt. I felt so left out.:( So, this year, I will give it a try. So, letting my ignorance show here, I just go to her site each Friday for directions, or do I sign up to have them arrive by e-mail. I am a little unsure how her mystery works. I did wander around the site and saw the intro/color pallet but I don't recall a sign up process. I started a file on my computer and saved the Intro pages. Sounds like what I do is each Friday check into her blog? Correct?

I have subscribed to this thread, to get hints and tips. See you back here soon.

Getting excited! My mom bought me a new Janome 6700 today....I have a week to get her all set up! :)

WMU- I'm in the same boat so we can row it together! :)

Kristi- that's exciting!!!!

Kristi, what a thoughtful gift from your mom. The 6700 looks like a fabulous machine.

Lynda and Origami, love your choice of fabrics and can’t wait to see how they look in your BH project.

WMU, I'm so glad you are giving this a try! There is no sign-up required. You can check the blog on Friday for the posting of the clue, or you can check Bonnie's Facebook page (people always post a link to the clue there), or you can just check this thread, as someone always posts a link to the clue here, as well. I receive Bonnie's blog email a day late (don't know if this is the case with everyone), so I wouldn't wait for that. Save the clue each week and you're good to go. The clues always have an abundance of helpful diagrams/photos, and I have found it a tremendous help to print those out so I can refer to them while working on the clue.

Since we have a week before we start, I found another group of fabric to make a throw, hopefully. I have pulled at least 1/2 the fabric requirements. Who knows maybe this could be a lap quilt for practice and do the other colors selection for the larger quilt if I like the final top. What do you think of my fabric selections? [ATTACH=CONFIG]620152[/ATTACH] The fabric is laid out in the order of her yardage amounts starting on the left side. I’m not one for white backgrounds. [ATTACH=CONFIG]620153[/ATTACH] This is my 1st choice of fabric for a king size quilt using mainly one fabric piece for each colorway.