SusieQH, this is my third BH mystery but I only participate every “other” year and I usually don’t get them finished until Fall...just go at your own comfortable pace.

Quiltinglawyer, I have had to purchase more of the framboise fabric from the get-go, it’s just not a color I gravitate towards but hopefully I’ll have enough to get me through this quilt.

Hopefully I will get through Clue 6 this weekend and then Onto Clue 7 later in the week.

Many thanks to all for posting. I feel a whole lot better now!
And you're right- this is supposed to be fun! So I'm going to slow
down and get out of the panic I got myself in!

Don't know if I will make it or not, but I have less than half of my Clue 6 to finish and I want to get them done today!

The reds I dyed yesterday are just not sticking no matter how much boiling I've done and mostly I've just made the pinks pinker, which does make them a bit more usable if they aren't going to bleed over all the others. Going to go to Walmart after posting this (gotta love not waiting for stores to open in this modern world) and get some Retayne or Rit setting agent or something and hope for the best/try to think of other resolutions.

I just picked up Rob Thomas's Chip Tooth Smile CD that just came out in 2019 as a present to myself because I was needing some new music and wondered what he was up to. Rob was/is the lead man for Matchbox 20, if you liked what they did then, you'll like what he does now. I love the entire album. It's one of those where you want to hear the next song and in sequence, or at least that's how it is for me.
Can't help but dance along to the ironing when this one come's on. (It's on now!)
I Love it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo84qxVfbqU

but then slow down and waltz for
It's only Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnRZV8X_1Ng

Also in my CD player is a bunch of old music, well, the last 20 years or so. I had a favorite radio station but they changed formats a couple of years ago, it used to be described as "Adult Alternative". So more of a softer rock world beat with a lot of acoustic?? KMTT, The Mountain in Seattle. When grunge overtook Seattle and the music scene, it was more Counting Crows than Nirvana. It was nice to have the same station for decades.. but tastes and delivery systems change. When I do my thrift store shopping with the hubby, I look at the CDs and have been able to find a number of collections from the Live Music Lounge as well as various compilation albums. I load them up and it's like 6 hours of commercial free happy noise.

​That's how I'm interpreting the dog ear instructions too, but I still cut everything with the Accuquilt so there are no dog ears on any of my pieces. I'm curious to see how this matters later. I'm not a super experienced quilter, but I can't come up with any scenario where this makes sense to me! But it must make sense somehow if it's emphasized in the instructions. I'm sure I'll get a learning experience out of it, and I may or may not be crying later over my decision to ignore the dog ear thing! Maybe my no dog ear having pieces will wind up as an extra pieced border or something fun on the back. 😁

I am about halfway through clue 6, the first few sets of flying geese went slow, but now that I have a system they are going much faster. The mid week extra clue last week is really going to throw me behind...I am slow at cutting and piecing, and the timing of this mystery coincides with a very busy season at work. I knew that when I started, and I want to keep up to keep the mystery part intact, but it has been harder than I thought!

I am pleased with the geese units...so far I think they are going together well, but we will see if my opinion changes once I have to sew them to other units!

my poor broken mind is still not wrapped around clue 7, but I am cutting my strip sets this morning, and I get why she wants the pinwheels set up the way she does, well, I think I get it, a specific color next to it will lead off from the specific setting of the pinwheel making an arm or W or something. And starting with the half square cut with pink on top and cut going / sets up those pinwheels correctly. Using the easy angle my first cut is always \ so I'll just be aware of that.

some of what we've cut and not stitched may going into a border treatment too, she has done that before.

I know we have 3 or 4 members here with vision problems, one of the many ways I've adapted my passion for quilting is taking off the left side door on my machine. Can't do it on the vintage ones, but they aren't so bulky. It really opens up with window for seeing what I'm stitching.

Best time to go to Walmart is before 8:00 am! They didn't have much in the Rit dye area and no usable red dye for me dry or liquid, but they had several bottles of stabiilzer. And then I went down the next aisle where there were tons of Tie-Dye stuff. I bought some caustic soda, which is the pretreatment for dying figuring it will help me remove the unset dyes or at least make the cotton more reactive along with some red and fuschia dyes. I've got yesterday's fabrics soaking in there and will do some with the tie dye additives in a bit and hope for the best while I continue on Clue 6 and my hopes to start cutting Clue 7 tomorrow.

I now have the remaining sets ready to go together. Although I try really hard to let my random happen naturally, there is a certain amount of color and value cross over in my fabrics and I had to fiddle around with those last 3-4 sets until I reached good enough balance. Not my favorite combinations at all, Clue 6, but considering all the reservations I've had I'm satisfied that it will work out in the end. The Parakeets looked rather nice together but not so much with my dark colors.

I did not have the mental energy for geese last night, so had an enjoyable time sorting through my leftover blue and red strips from previous clues and cutting what I'll need for clue 7. This morning has gotten away from me and I have to finish basting the quilt that is on the dining room table so we can use the table to stack all of the Christmas ornament boxes; I'm hoping to consolidate and eliminate a box this year. When that is done I can get to what I really want to do, which is the rest of the geese.

Her clue 7 sounded like the reveal might be next friday. Part of the fun after the yardages and colors are revealed in October is all the finishes it spurs on, from all the years on her Quiltville Studio at Facebook, before this years clues start coming. Always lots to do still after the reveal.

I'm I'm thinking because of the uneven total of units we've cut this will be an on-point setting. Not that anyone ever has to do that...our projects at the end of the day.

But the good news is Hooray! At last the rinse water is running clean and not bright red. I will have available fabric tomorrow. Still intend to finish Clue 6 today (almost there!), but we are going to go look at a new dog today or tomorrow and that will take priority over quilting when we get the call. Is actually another set of small bonded terriers, their owner has passed away. They do get along with other dogs and cats and we hope that Buddy, our remaining half of our pair of terriers will get along with them. He's lonely, but I figure we have another 2-4 years ahead of us and although 3 may be one too many, at least they are only knee high and I don't love great danes!