Iceblossom

Welcome aboard new mystery quilters and new quilters in general! Bonnie gives very good directions, she really does -- but she also tries to keep in some mystery elements so maybe some of the things we do seem rather strange.

I've been quilting for many years and I am a seams-open person and I cut large and trim down for accuracy. I'm going to follow Bonnie's to the side directions this year, with both precise cutting and side seaming -- it will be a different construction technique than I'm used to so there will be an aspect of newness to me too.

Last year I also had to learn/improve on organizational skills and bought a lot of clips! Love clips now, Frolic showed me the need for such things. I really recommend having things in place before we begin, so I have a box I'm putting my greys in now and will use for the project. Printing out the Clues is a big help, especially if you aren't going to have it done by New Year's -- after a certain point the clues are taken off the web.

She says to go ahead and start with about half the pieces if you are not sure. from what other quilters have done it probably takes a bit more than half to get a nice sized project. Nice thing about scrappy is you can always add more.

Typically in her quilts there is a lot of what I call "front loading" making a lot of tiny little subunits. If you are planning to go along in "real time" there can be some pretty at least time intensive days involved, but remember that the only schedule we have is the ones we impose on ourselves. There is no way when I was a working single mother that I had enough time to do this much sewing in December!

I'm at a spot in my quilting/life where I have the time available and the fabric and I find it sort of freeing that I know in advance what Bonnie's style is and that I might not love the final project -- someone will! I'm finishing up a Frolic UFO from another board member right now. As I say, she lost her joy in the project. She also likes my line about "getting everything you wanted out of it prior to completion". That can happen in mysteries too. I can tell you that there are many uncompleted Bonnie Hunter projects scattered around the world

I am about to layout the top of the UFO today, and have committed myself to a border. Haven't been in the best health/very perky last few weeks but I think I'm still set to have the top done by the end of the weekend, and then I can really turn my attention to selecting my fabrics for this year... Black Friday approaches!

riutzelj

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joe'smom

Wonky star, welcome to the Quilting Board and to the mystery. What a great idea, to use the mystery as a boot camp! Doing the mysteries has improved my skills and my confidence as a piecer, and I'm sure it will do the same for you!

quiltsRfun

Wonkystar, welcome to the quilting forum. I was surprised to see my name pop up in your comment. I’ve really enjoyed Bonnie’s mysteries but won’t be able to participate this year. I think you’ll really enjoy sharing your progress with this group. I’ll be watching for your posts.

Wonky star

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome! I am really looking forward to this challenge. At this point in my quilting development, I think it will be very helpful to be told what to do instead of driving myself crazy trying to figure out the best way to sew something. And with instructions one week at a time (mostly) I will be forced to focus. I also think using fabric I didn't obsess over will make it easier to cut into and just get started, especially since I don't even know what I am actually making. I recognize I am in for a hard slog but I feel a lot of relief, honestly. My planned projects are mostly for gifts and I feel a lot internal pressure to do a good job for the recipient and not be wasteful of the fabric I lovingly chose. I have no chill as the kids used to say.

I would love any ideas of how you all keep organized during this challenge. The clips tip was good, I will pick some up. I have claimed a corner of our den instead of working at the dining room table. I recently bought a 1975 Kenmore that tucks away in the table so after finally figuring out how to thread the top and the terrifying bobbin, I feel like I have really cut down on set up and clean up time.

Teen

Welcome, Wonky Star.... I love your attitude. I remember feeling “afraid” to just jump in and start a project when I first started quilting...afraid I’d mess it up....I’m going to share some wisdom that was shared with me from someone on this forum a few years ago.....”It’s just fabric”. Lol... It certainly put everything into perspective. Some of my greatest successes have grown from my greatest failures. Just go for it and have fun.

As far as organizing your project....Invest in some project boxes that you can easily store your fabrics and blocks as you go. I should note that I am really anal about “staying neat”...organizing this way works for me but others may offer other ideas, too. As you continue in your craft, you’ll find what works for you.

Here is my project box (14”) for this mystery, which holds my fabrics.. I have an empty one I’ll use to place the units in as I sew each week. You can buy these at Joann’s, Amazon..etc. Hope this helps..

quiltsRfun

I’ve also found project boxes at Tuesday Morning for a very good price.

SuzSLO

I got plastic containers meant for giving cookies as gifts at Dollar Tree. They are 10”x10”x2.75” .... and they say “Santa’s Cookie” and “Comfort and Joy” on the lid. But the price was right and 5 of them are a perfect fit for my shelves. Still, they will probably be too small once we start putting the blocks together.

ibex94

Sam's sometimes has perfect 14" clear boxes on sale, too. Dollar Tree is my fav for nontraditional quilt notions and storage supplies. Buckets for $1 cannot be found in a more colorful and affordable abundance.

Iceblossom

Was going to mention that the Frolic UFO came to me in a large flat rate post office box and that has been a very nice generous size yet easy to carry around and is about the size of the box I've started for Grassy Creek. I'd also recommend a trip to the dollar store and get some Gallon sized bags or what ever they have for largest size as well as a box of more sandwich sized bags. I ended up buying a bunch of large clips there last year that are heavy but super easy for large groups of fabric/blocks, and can also grip single layers as well. I also now have a lot of those nice little quilter type clips for the subunits.

When the UFO came to me, it had all the front loading stuff done and units were clipped into sets and those put into large nice ziploc baggies with the clues marked on the bags. I went through the different bags and units and put together all the parts needed for each block into a cheap quart baggy of its own. I had a sharpie that wrote on the bags and I numbered them just because bags are slippery and sometimes I'm clumsy and sometimes I simply loose count... If your markers don't work on your bags, perfect time for some blue or masking tape (both available at the dollar store...) to make a label and write on that.

edit: I found I had two tubs in my sewing room, think large shoebox sized that were a perfect fit across for the bags of block pieces! Not sure if they were from the dollar store or not, but got those slippery bags handled at the end. My Tuesday group ladies tease me sometimes with my project boxes and bags such, but deep down I know they are impressed on how I can always have a project to work on at group