Merry Mayhem's Mystery Quilt #147 "Let's Face It"
 

It's that time of year again!

No, not Thanksgiving. Or the winter-related holiday of your preference. Or even Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery quilt (no shade, BH does good work!) Instead, it's the thing I've been eagerly anticipating and checking the website every day of November for:

MerryMayhem's New Year's Day Mystery Quilt! This year it's #147: "Let's Face It" ONE DAY Online Mystery Quilt! Yes, you read that right, it's a quilt top in a day! (Not counting cutting and selecting your fabric).

New Year's Day MYSTERY Quilt! | MerryMayhem.com

Or you can follow along at the MerryMayhem's Mystery Quilts FB page (not linked here b/c I'm not sure of the rules on FB linking). There are 3 quilt sizes to choose from with the yardage requirements for each size.

Part 1 has been released already, which gives the fabric requirements to make several different sized versions of this quilt and some of the cutting instructions. Part 2 will be released on Christmas Day, December 25, & going by past mysteries will probably provide the rest of the cutting directions, and maybe some sewing directions to get some of the time-intense foundational sewing done before New Year's Day. Because that's when this mystery turns from a marathon into a sprint!

On New Year's Days past, MerryMayhem will release 1 sewing clue per hour to allow Mystery Quilters to complete the quilt top on that day (although you can certainly save the clues that day & complete the quilt top at a slower pace... I got off track somewhere around noon and finished the next day).

Due to the time constraints and probably also just the pattern maker's personal style, these quilts tend to be less complex and have a lot less tiny pieces than Bonnie Hunter's quilts. Just a tip for anyone who, like me, might be a little intimidated to take on a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt... not that plenty of people don't complete both, of course!

This will be my 2nd year participating and I've been looking forward to this for a while! Now to go through my stash with those Part 1 fabric requirements in mind https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/smile.png

I am graciously cut and pasting this with permission....so I didn't have to start from scratch. She calls it her Let's Face It quilt so you can use leftover 6" x 9" facemask novelty print fabrics, although you don't *have* to use novelties or her colors (I used Quilt of Valor fabrics for my last one). Would love to see your fabrics! Post away!

Thanks for starting this thread, I've been on the lookout for it :)

This is my 4th consecutive year participating in the Merry Mayhem Mystery Quilt, although it'll be tricky for me as I'm not a huge fan of scrappy quilts. She said a few duplicates among the scrappy fabrics would be okay, so I'm just mentally wrestling with myself over how many duplicates I can get away with & still consider it only "a few"

It will be a good chance to use up some of those fat quarters I bought when I first started quilting & hadn't learned I was a half-yard-or-more kinda gal.

This will be my 3rd year participating. Thanks for starting a thread to follow along with others.

I had already set aside my leftover fabrics from mask making. I’ll read the fabric requirements and hopefully I’ll have enough to avoid duplicates.

Here is a photo of a few masks I made. I mostly used batik fabrics.

Looking forward to this

Thanks for starting this thread! Even though I can't work fast enough to participate in real time, I love following the Mayhem and seeing what others are doing. I have really liked her patterns, and am planning on choosing fabrics.

After looking at the intro, my reaction is that her fabrics are kind of weird this time. The gold doesn't seem to go that well with the pink eyeglasses.

Can anyone explain what an I Spy quilt is?

Hi Joe'sMom, the phrase comes from the children's game "I Spy with My Little Eye...." My kids would play this visual scavenger hunt when we were on road trips, and we would have a list of things to "spy". When you found the sign or the color of car or whatever, you had to say, "I spy with my little eye (the school bus)." When it is a quilt, each "focus" fabric then has a different motif for kids to search for and find for the game. I've seen some insanely small cathedral windows I Spy quilts that are really amazing. Pinterest has a lot of photos of examples of "I Spy" quilts. Hope that helps! Hugs!

I thought the same thing but I think A & B are essentially going to act as almost a solid so I suppose we aren't really supposed to "see" the pattern on the gold fabric.

For those who, like me, aren't a huge fan of scrappy, someone did ask about it on the FB page & she replied:

So possibly something to keep in mind. Right now I'm eyeing 24 fabrics, which would leave me with 3 duplicates from each fabric. 4 different colors with a set of about 6-8 fabrics that are multi-colored. I'm worried my individual fabrics aren't interesting enough so maybe I'll just go with more # of duplicates from a smaller selection of the most interesting designs...

Yes that's my intention, I ordered a fabric from spoonflower for my flight attendant friend and was thinking of making this for her, as well as a QOV with a medium to large scale patriotic print, and then making the tone on tone red and blue. Decisions decisions.....LOL.

Thank you, Rebaquilts! That's a great explanation.

I thought I might take the easy way out and order some small pieces of novelty fabrics from Etsy for fabric C. They have quite a few entries for 9" x 11" pieces. It would be easy to cut them to size.

I noticed that she says fabric E could be the same as fabric B; I have a 2 yd. piece of fabric rejected for a border, so I was thinking I might use that for both.

I also considered getting a layer cake and having some coordinated prints rather than I spy prints, to be a bit more coordinated. Maybe that would work well for a QOV too. Decisions decisions. Hugs all and thanks for chatting about this, it will be fun!

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.

What a beautiful assortment of fabrics, vadalia! They go very nicely with your A and B fabrics.

I haven't sifted through the C fabrics I gathered, but I'm thinking that overall they are too bright to be compatible with the first B/E fabric I chose, which looks very subdued in comparison. My second choice, which could only be used for E because it is not a subtle print, is a farmland scene, and I'm wondering if that's too specifically thematic to go with C fabrics that aren't related to farming. In addition, of all the many greens in my stash, I could only find one possible B that was compatible with this potential E fabric, and it is barely a half yard. I'd like to cut my C's before taking a photo, so will try to do that this week.

All the adds on Facebook were frustrating so I closed the account. Is it available some other way?

Those are really pretty colors! Love the rosey colored next to the light beige with all of the others. Those look great!

Here's a messy photo of my uncut fabrics. The cream (with embossed butterflies) at the top left would be my A. I pulled two fabrics for my B even though she said 'not scrappy,' in caps no less, because I rarely buy more than 1/2 yd. unless I'm buying for a border or backing. But I think these would blend well enough. In the middle are the C fabrics, and the two at the bottom would be my D and E. Please advise if you think this would work. If I were to buy a yard for my B, what color would you suggest?

Unfortunately, most of my stash C directional fabrics will have the wrong orientation, as the scraps were not large enough to cut for correct placement.

Those are great fabrics, as you stand back, there is a lot of green and quite a few reds/oranges. I love the two greens at the bottom, are the two at the bottom part of a collection? Any coordinating fabrics from a collection perhaps? I think these will work well together just like her golds.

I started a thread on the Main page since I think I have to get permission to start one here. At any rate, this is the link for the main mystery page - the fabric requirement and cutting instructions are in the files. You could scroll down on the main page to get them, but you have to wade through a bunch of posts. https://www.facebook.com/groups/376851042875618

Rebaquilts, the two fabrics are not part of a collection, but I bought them both when making Bonnie Hunter's Grassy Creek mystery (but ended up not using them). The grid fabric was part of Robin Pickens 'Solana' line, which was out at the time. The other fabric I discovered by accident while googling something else, and found the nicest shop when buying it -- 'Quilts 'n Gifts.'

Thank you, so much! Makes me feel more confident in my choices :)

I feel ya. I ended up swapping out what was supposed to be the outer border to last year's mystery quilt because it just didn't fit with the other fabrics (only after I'd already cut it, of course) I don't think I'm even going to cut my borders this year until I have a better idea what the quilt is going to look like when it's more put together. Can't wait to see your Cs!

Thank you! I went back & forth between the rosey fabric & a midnight dark blue but I loved the rosey one too much. The only down side is I couldn't use some pink fabrics I'd originally planned on because there wasn't enough contrast. Small price to pay, I think!

Those are some super cute designs! I go crazy for ladybugs :)

So just to make sure I have it correct- the two oranges at the top are your combined Fabric B/"dark" and the two greens at the bottom are your D/light border and E/dark border, correct? The only thing I'd keep an eye on is how much contrast you can get with the B/dark/ orange fabrics and some of your orange and red Fabric C pieces. I had to drop a couple pink fabrics from my Fabric C because they didn't stand out enough against my rosey colored Fabric B, so I've been there too.

As for what color B you might want to buy instead, good question. You have a little bit of blue here and there with some of your other fabric Cs (but it's not an all-over color in those fabrics like the orange & red is in their's) so blue might be a good option to tie things together without being too jarring. Or you could go extreme and up the contrast with a dark purple, since that makes up a triadic color scheme with the orange & green also prominent in your fabrics :) Good luck!

That is such a good point. I purchased a yellow/green/gray layer cake I've been wanting for a while for the Cs, and the triadic color scheme idea is a great idea for the contrast. Before I get my ABs I think I will try out a triadic and get out my color wheel.

I bailed on the Bonnie Hunter quilt this year so will do both the Cuts and Bolts NYE mystery and the Merry Mayhem NYD one. Of course, it will take me a couple of weeks or more to finish them. I was surprised at how many scraps I found of the appropriate size. I think I'm only duplicating 6 or 7 of them. The background fabrics are my A and B. I'll wait to chose borders when I see how this quilt turns out.

Sorry to see you leave the BH mystery, Belfrybat, but there's no point doing something you don't enjoy.

Very pretty fabrics, Belfrybat! I like your B selection very much. It seems to lift and brighten everything.

It's really instructive and helpful to see other people's selections. I'm having doubts at present about my choices, so once I am done cutting my Cs, I will post a photo of the alternate fabric B I have, to get your opinions.

yes it absolutely does. Nice selection!

Here are my cut (making lap size) C fabrics. On the left is the original dark I was considering, which would be used for both B and E (border). On the right are the fabrics I showed previously for D and E. My thinking then was that the blue dark would be too subdued, but now I'm thinking maybe something more subdued would serve to better showcase the C fabrics than something more distinctive like the pasture scene. Any thoughts would be welcome.

The cream on the left could be used either for A or for D, and the lighter cream on the right could serve for either A or D also. Do you have any thoughts on which would be better for which, or if they are too plain or too similar to each other?

Several of my C fabrics are oriented the wrong way. For now I'm not fretting about that, but if the time comes and I think they look too dumb, I will replace with duplicates of right way fabrics.

Okay, I think I've got it! :)

I found a beautiful flecked cream that I have plenty of, which I'll use for A. For B I just bought a yard of medium gray. For D I found a very light blue in my stash, which goes well with the blue fish fabric, which I'll use for E.

I'll post a photo when I have the gray fabric (if it works.)

I understand that the outside cream will be the first outer border, and I like the left cream for that next to the blue outer border, with the lighter cream on the right nearer the Cs. And I really like your blue, it is a good pattern, not too much, not too little, and yes, it does showcase the fabrics just as you mentioned I agree. I found my fabrics but I wanted a lap not crib size, my layer cake doesn't have more than about 48 rectangles because the other fabrics are no-nothings and won't work. I got the color wheel out and that made quick work of the selection. I won't be using triad, instead I'll be using opposites on the wheel.

Belfrybat, I'm loving those fabric Cs. I'm obsessed with the one that looks like watercolor flowers, it's gorgeous!

joe'smom, I know you went with different fabrics than the ones in your picture but I 100% agree with your thinking:

Given the descriptions she uses when making fabric recommendations for A & B, I'm thinking those are going to be used both for a place to "rest the eye," so to speak, from all the scrappy fabrics & to provide contrast for those C fabrics. So I figure something simple and subdued but with high contrast to our Cs is going to have the highest chance of success. I do think your blue and cream were good possibilities though, and I'm eager to see the new potential A & B.

Rebaquilts, color wheel opposites are a great choice too!

Sorry I’m late to this thread…A quilting friend of mine sent me an email an asked if I was going to participate in Merry Mayhem’s mystery this year…so I popped in here at the Quilting Board immediately. I have enjoyed catching up on everyone’s posts this morning with a cup of coffee.

This will be my fourth MMM but with two other quilt projects that I am in the midst of finishing, I will just make a crib size this year for the sake of keeping my sanity. 😜 Since it is a crib size, the I Spy concept will work splendidly and I have two options…a fun bright layer cake called Mojito that I have on hand or weeding through my children’s fabrics for C pieces.

Hubby and I will be visiting our children on the 26th and 29th in other parts of Maine and DH will likely be consumed by football games today so I have a couple of days to catch up on cutting. We have been without power since late last night but luckily we invested in a whole house generator earlier this Spring. 🤗