Merry Mayhem mystery quilts are great. I've been doing them for years and have made some patterns I would not have tried simply because I didn't know where it was going and I'm fairly decent at following instructions. Only once in all the years was I able to complete the quilt on New Year's Day and that was a real marathon of quilting. But, as my quilting skills slowly improve so does my ability to stay a bit more caught up until the reason I don't complete now is I don't marathon quilt. I have always been pleased with the result.

I found a surprising number of fabrics in my stash that could be used as novelty fabrics. I don't think they strictly are novelty, but they show a definite image of something recognizable.

I liked the idea of using up mask making fabric. I used mostly batik fabric.

I pulled out my storage box. Found I have at least a half yard remaining of these fabrics if I go with crib size. Question …..are the two lights too similar for fabrics A and and D?

I’m not sure if I want to go with the blues or the golds/green.

edited to say: I forgot to say I think the green would probably not work because it’s not tone on tone.

Blueridgebev, I love those light batiks. It's hard to say how different they need to be. The two lights I'm considering are also very similar; they both read as solid, one is cream and the other is a little whiter. I just didn't have any very light tone on tone with color, but she does say A can be tone-on-tone, solid or a subtle print. I didn't think I had any light prints that were subtle enough.

Do you have more than one blue in the photo? Were you thinking of the gold as your first dark and the green/gold as your second, or was the gold your light? It shouldn't be a problem to use the green/gold as your E, there weren't any specifics given for that. It seemed to me -- whether intentional or not -- that her A and B fabrics coordinated with each other but her D didn't coordinate with A and B.

I'm doing the Cuts and Bolts NYE mystery but will probably download the clues for Merry Mayhem to look at later. I've done two of hers in years past and have been disappointed. I've never been disappointed at C&B mysteries.

A little bit more info from the FB page, someone asked (in regard to a fabric design they might have to fussy cut) if the rectangles would be subcut & the reply was:

I found especially that second part very relevant because I do have some directional fabrics I've chosen. I take that to mean if you're looking at your rectangle so that 8.5 is the height and 4.5 is the width, your directional pattern should be rightside up- is that what everyone else is getting from that direction?

vadalia, that's how I interpret it. I'm glad you mentioned that!

Looked at c&b web site. No NYE mystery. Do you have a link?

I think the pattern shows up well enough on the left one that it reads as different. Your blue is super pretty, would that be a Fabric B?

Awesome, thank you, joe'smom!

I think I'm following that one- I could only find it on the facebook page. I believe it's under Cuts and Bolts Fabrics Mystery Quilt or something to that effect, you'll have to ask to join. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll scrounge up a link.

I finally bit the bullet and cut up my Fabric Cs. I'm super nervous since I lean more on the "controlled scrappy" side at best, but I decided to just cut up all the unused fat quarters I've had laying around for years. What will be, will be. I did still try to kept the number of colors limited so that I could maybe do a gradient effect if I didn't like the scrappiness any other way. I did have just enough for the queen size (was originally going to do the twin size) so for the sake of cleaning out that part of my stash, I'm going big this year:

Attachment 641693

The dark rosey colored fabric in the upper right is my Fabric B/dark, the light beige in the bottom right is my Fabric A/light. I'll probably wait until I know how much I like the quilt before I choose the borders.