Merry Mayhem New Year Day Mystery
 

The New Year's Eve one day online mystery by Merry Mayhem will be posted again this year. She now has the first clue available to get a head start on the project. It has yardage requirements and cutting instructions. For anyone doing it, I'd love to see pictures of what fabrics you chose and your progress!

Like Bonnie Hunter mysteries (if you are familiar with her mysteries), it's free to get the clues, and after New Year's Day the pattern will be available for purchase. Unlike Bonnie Hunter mysteries, Merry Mayhem New Year's Eve mystery patterns are for tops you can complete quickly. If you have the day free, and are able to complete the hourly posted clues, then your top will be completed at the end of the day!

https://merrymayhem.com/onedaymyster...eid=117fc7f440

Thanks for posting, givio! I tried the Merry Mayhem last year and it was lots of fun, plus a very nice quilt pattern, so I'll plan on taking part.

Thanks for doing it with me! I made one of her mysteries a couple of years ago, and also saved the instructions for a couple of them. For people who don't like mysteries, it's easy to save the instructions after you see the 'reveal' if you like it-- just go to the link at the end of the day Jan. 1 and take them all at the same time.

Today I looked through my fabrics and I think I will go with fall colors. My plaids for Fabrics B and C might not be so good? And my Fabric D is not a pastel. And my medium Fabric E is not a tone-on-tone. That one seems like I'll tweak, and maybe use that fabric for the binding instead.

I like to have the cutting directions early. I generally get a back ache bending over the cutting mat so it's not my favorite part. I have plenty of time to split up the cutting though, so that's great!

That sounds like fun, givio! Thank you! I'm going to do it.

I think I've got my fabrics all chosen. I'm so nervous, I think this is the most fabrics I've ever had to pull for a quilt at once. I did last year's Mystery Quilt and it turned out great so I'm optimistic for this year's as well. It's funny because I expected to do bright, wild colors but ending up choosing a focus fabric that's one of the most subdued in my stash lol

Your fabrics look fun and interesting, givio! Too much cutting does my back in, too.

I don't have many longer lengths of fabric in my stash, mostly 1/2 yd. and smaller. Then I remembered a kit I bought for the fabric, not intending to do the pattern, which I wasn't that crazy about, so maybe I can raid that kit for my fabrics! I've printed out the fabric descriptions and cutting directions, which will take me some time to absorb.

I'm going to try and jump in on this too. I like her patterns. Ok....off to pull fabric!

It looks like that kit fabric will work, except for one of the E fabrics, which is supposed to be 3/4 yd. but I only have 1/2 yd., so I will just combine two fabrics for that and hope it works out.

Let's see your fabrics! Talk me into this!

Here are the kit fabrics (Thimbleberries). The second and third blues I would have to use together as E2.

You should definitely join in, sewbizgirl. I will be fun!

Nice fabrics, Joe'sMom... I have or had most all of those fabrics.

Joe'smom, Me too, most of my fabrics are small pieces. I like to sew scrappy quilts, so I usually use bits and pieces of this and that. To find chunks of fabric from the start is a challenge for me! I loved that plaid when I had it that you chose. I think I had some of that large print fabric too.

I've measured my choices and a couple of them aren't big enough, but I thought I might just see if I can alter the instructions and go with what I've got. For example, my big print fabric is not enough-- but since the instructions indicate Fabric A is the outside border, I don't see why, if that's the case, that I could not make it smaller than 6 1/2". In that way, I can still keep that choice of fabric. Since the pattern is a medallion, it will be easy to add another border to bring the size up larger again if I want.

SBG, No mailing something to participate, one quick day of sewing, end result is not too big or not too small, it will be easy and fun... what's not to like? :-)

Thanks for coming SusieQOH, vadalia, and Marich52. Post your fabric pictures for us! :-)

Having printed out and studied the fabric requirements, they don't look quite so daunting.

I have done the NYD mystery the last three years and have enjoyed it so I will do some snooping through my stash and see what I can come up with and where I need to purchase to fill in.

Watson

I feel the vortex sucking me in!

Any thoughts on why we'd be drawing lines on some squares but not others?

Seems like some are meant to be HSTs and some just squares.

I started reading the cutting directions (clue 1?) and it said for fabric A to cut FOUR 6½” by LENGTH of Fabric Strips. Length of fabric? The requirements show 1.5 yards are needed for fabric A, so we are to cut 4 strips that are 6.5" by 54"? Can that be right?

umm....I have a box of thimbleberries from years ago....I am doing Bonnie's mystery too....but this is also intriguing. I have printed out the cutting instructions.

Yep....she says that fabric A will be the border fabric.

Were you questioning that because the quilt is longer than 54"? I wondered about that, too. I concluded that there must be cornerstones in the border. Since my border fabric is a 2 yd. length, I plan on cutting at that length, and I can always re-cut later.

This lady has always cut her borders length of fabric in past patterns, so I'm sure it isn't a typo.

Watson

Thank you so much for pointing that out! I haven't started cutting yet but I have a feeling I would have auto-"corrected" that to WoF without a second thought! Tricky, tricky...

Finish size of quilt will be 52"x60" with borders.

Please forgive the terrible camera on my phone but attached is my (probably) final fabric choices. I had about 4 different group options with mainly differences in my C fabric, and some choices in the E & F family fabrics. I have a few concerns about my final choice here- neither E1 nor E2 are actually tone-on-tone and there's not as much contrast between their tones as I'd like (more medium-dark and dark than the called for medium and dark) Also, only E1 and F1 have a triangle/diamond pattern whereas everything else has a circle (it might be hard to see but D is yellow with tiny white polka dots, F2 has tiny slightly-lighter blue bubbles, and G is white-on-white medallions) Plus I think F2 counts as a directional fabric, although I think I'd be fine with not having all the triangles pointing the same way in the final product, assuming that doesn't throw off some design element.

Ultimately though, I actually really like the final group of fabrics I picked out. I can just see how there's room for it to potentially go poorly depending on the actual pattern. But I guess that "what if..." factor is part of the fun of a Mystery Quilt lol

No, I was more concerned that it may be a typo... because most patterns tell you to cut WOF, but not LOF. Instead of LOF they give you inches, such as "cut 6.5" x 54" lengthwise'. Strange wording....

I put together my fabrics but I'm not cutting anything yet. The pink at the bottom is Color A and then they follow as they go up. I found all the color choosing instructions very confusing. Clear as mud.

Does anyone have a picture of a previous Merry Mayhem New Year's mystery quilt? I'd love to get a sense of her style.

I don't want to post a pic directly in case someone wants to be spoiler-free, but (if it works correctly) here's a link to the comment from last year's thread where I posted my finished quilt top. Not to toot my own horn, but I think my fabric choices worked really well for that year's pattern, which is why I'm so excited to try again this year!:

https://www.quiltingboard.com/8350121-post133.html

You can also go to the Merry Mayhem Mystery Quilt page on facebook. She doesn't post a lot throughout the year so it's pretty easy to scroll back to last year, where other people posted their pics, as well as years prior to that.

I love your pink/red (F1/F2) combo and I think that's gonna look so good with your Fabric A. I didn't find the instructions confusing so much as challenging to find things already in my stash that fit the criteria- it looks like you followed them well despite any confusion tho! The only thing I see that might be an issue is the lighter of your two greens (E1, I believe) It looks like that has a directional pattern, which she said probably wouldn't be well suited to the quilt pattern, although I think that's probably a YMMV thing (I have a technically directional fabric in my own choices but it wouldn't bother me to see it sideways or whatever in the final product)

Wow, lot's of posts since I was last here.
Yeah, agree with SBG, the diagonal lines usually mean making HSTs. I dislike that method of sewing HSTs. Why draw a line, sew and cut? It's easier just to cut and sew-- two steps instead of three. I don't want to spend time drawing lines. I'll wait on that to see if it's necessary.

We all have quite different fabrics! Thanks for the pictures. It will be so interesting to see how the pattern looks when using our different colors/prints!

sewbizgirl, the directions were confusing to me visually, the way she had them all crammed together. Once I transferred them to a word document and added appropriate spacing and capitalization, I found that they made better sense. I love your fabrics!

vadalia, your fabrics look like they will work great.

This is my last year's Merry Mayhem pieces put up on my wall. I had low contrast fabrics, so have included a close-up. I thought it was a fun, clever pattern.

Oops, I posted my photos before catching up with the thread and seeing vadalia's comments. Does anyone know how I can remove the photos? There didn't seem to be a way on the edit page.

No need to remove photos!! :-) The more the merrier!

SBG, do you have a picture of that zigzag MM NYD mystery quilt we made?
Watson, didn't you make that one with us too? I don't have a picture of mine.

That is a GREAT looking quilt! Do you recall the name of the pattern... or mystery number?

My fabric picks are just preliminary. I will be changing one of the green TOTs because they are almost the same value, rather than a medium and a dark. I also think that pale pink pastel sticks out like a sore thumb, but she said "very light pastel".

Joe's mom, editing only works for a short time after you post... like maybe 15 minutes? After that it takes the board moderator to remove them. But why remove them? I enjoyed seeing another example of last year's quilt.

Givio, a zig zag MM quilt is not ringing a bell. Are you sure I made it? Do you have a picture of yours? This is the only MM quilt I have a photo of, as far as I know:

Thank you so much! It was Merry Mayhem Case #143 "Just Around The Corner" This year's fabric instructions were more complex than that one's so I'm crossing my fingers that the end result is anywhere near as positive.

Yeah, the call for the very pale pastel-ish fabric made me a little nervous. Obviously, she's gonna use it for some serious contrasting so it'd be so easy to make a mis-step with it. I do think your pale pink matches enough with the lightest pinks in the Fabric A fruit centers and Fabric C flowers that it shouldn't look out of place, even if it's a subtle matching.

givio....I think this is the zig zag one you mean. My memory isn't what it used to be.
The black one was also a Merry Mayhem from a few years back.

Watson

I only vaguely remember that zig zag pattern (tho I like it) and it's long gone to charity if I made one. I don't have a picture of it. Givio, did you take a picture of yours? Watson, yours is pretty. Thanks for the pic.

Thanks so much for that info, Vadalia. Love that quilt.

I like reading the instructions on how to pick out fabrics that will work together well in the mystery quilt. This may be the year I don't have a ton of people to cook for on New Year's Day so I may actually get to sew on Jan 1. Silver lining with covid isolation....

Sewbizgirl, you should definitely do this mystery quilt!