thimblebug6000

Yes Bonnie gives the size in her introductory post.

CraftyBecksa

Thanks, Joe'smom and IceBlossom for the warm welcome. I'm very excited to participate in the mystery. I have mostly made modern quilt designs, so this will be a fun departure. I actually had just purchased her Lahinch pattern, but I think I will wait until after the mystery to do that. I'm curious: how many hours would each step of the mystery normally take? Or is it completely variable based on a range of factors? I'm trying to decide if I'm going to do a half or aim for the full - I have significant time over the next few months as I'm a teacher, and in Australia our long break is December - January.

I spent a couple of hours this morning putting together a shopping cart to round out the purples & blues for the quilt. I don't have a quilt shop nearby so can't do it in person. When they arrive later in the week, I'll take some photos to share. I have plenty of pink. I've also decided to use black as my neutral - I think it will make the colours pop, so we will see later if this was a good idea or not.

Iceblossom

@LI_diva finished sized as designed is 80x80. Is hidden in there on page 2 of the PDF, just above the paint chips. I do prefer rectangular and will probably need an extra row of blocks or something.

@CraftyBecksa Time commitments vary depending on your set up and what she is having us do. Some of the steps, especially at first are doing a kazillion units which often end up in the border. I'd say a minimum of 2 hours of concentrated work on what I call an easy week to 8 hours in a hard. I can usually be done with a clue in one "day" of sewing, sometimes though that is spread out over several days in real life. If you have a 2-hour opening each day, that should be plenty. If not, well -- there is no time limit!

For those of us with established sewing spaces and routines, maybe we can even do something else while we are working on the Mystery. I generally find it is sufficient for me during the time period -- some weeks I have to struggle and push myself. We are after all, making a queen sized quilt in about 6 weeks. My normal projects usually have larger pieces and take about a month.

My friend Barb says she just doesn't understand how even with time zones and such, some people are already done just as she is getting up! Some people are that fast, or are doing half projects, or just get up darn early...

Iceblossom

A note about Bonnie's color selections and fabrics and other general info:

@joe'smom Thanks for the ruler review. Bonnie will give tool suggestions and pictures but also directions for those of us without the tools. I use mostly standard rulers but sometimes I will give myself taped lines for consistency or other reasons. Some people swear by some of rulers they have gotten for these projects. Sometimes I just swear at mine

I am one of those she warns about needing more yardage. I cut large, press my seams open, and then trim down for proper sizing. Is the way I work and I'm happy. Every year though I think... maybe this is the year I should follow Bonnie's advice on how to press the seams to one side. I will say, she has very good reasons for doing things one way or the other.

When you look at the Paint Chips and Bonnie's samples of fabrics you will notice that she uses a very large color range. Is more of a concept than a color.

It is important with her projects that you can easily tell one color group from another, but we can usually switch entire color groups so long as you end up with (for this project) 3 distinct colors plus a background. Some of her projects can be done in values, so Dark, Medium, Light, and the Neutral for this one.

Bonnie's pieces can end up what I call small -- 1" finished size is not unusual, anything much over more than 2-3" square is unusual! Large scale fabrics can give weird results, so if you have a mostly pink fabric with varying blue bubbles, chance is that if you want the fabric to read pink, you are going to get an entirely blue bubble! Which can be fine -- or not.

Sometimes she has us make sets of pieces that will go together in blocks. Pre-Bonnie I didn't have much need or use for the little fabric clips. Now I have hundreds! I consider myself a pretty good organized quilter, but my skills always get tested and improved. Even though I can leave everything out in my sewing space I try to clean up as I go between clues. Is good to do anyway, and the weekly chapters of the mystery gives me a set chance to improve my skills on clean up...

joe'smom

'Completely variable based on a range of factors' is a great way to put it. I follow along on Bonnie's Facebook page, and it literally takes my breath away how quickly some people can work. I've always been a slow poke quilter, even when my health was better. I would say that over all the years of the mysteries I've participated in, I rarely would finish an entire clue before the next one was released. Bonnie used to recommend that if people hadn't finished one clue on time, they should put it aside and start the new clue with everyone else, so as to experience any problems with the unit that might arise for them.

Using a black background usually produces a spectacular result, and I think pink and black look great together. For Chilhowie, I used a black background, and I did have some contrast issues between my blacks and purples, but as I recall, that ended up only being a factor in the border.

Exactly! Using the half rectangle trim tool made me realize that I am not a specialty ruler kind of quilter.

Bonnie used to say more about value in the mysteries. I used to worry about it more, too. This year I could have very little contrast between my grays, pinks and blues but will just try to take care of it with fabric pairings.

JeanieG

Hi everyone!

I am in for this Mystery again also, however I only do lap size quilts now. This will be my 16th Bonnie Hunter Mystery! I still have 4 flimsys to be quilted, all the rest are done! My first was Roll, Roll Cotton Boll! That is still one of my favorites!

Iceblossom

Wow! Welcome back JeanieG, doing anything for 16 years is amazing. That you have most of them completely done is even more amazing!!

I am still working on my current project and my piles of fabric for that are rapidly shrinking. I've been working on a very warm red-orange-brown with gold embellishments project -- what ever direction I go in the Mystery will be quite different.

I did get out an empty tub and am starting to pull fabrics. I have used up a lot of my purples (and my pinks) but I should have plenty still. There will be some returning from the Rhododendron Trail Project, some I would have liked to still have but my goal is to use fabric...

It looks like I am pulling for three options -- One, pretty close to Bonnie's choices with white on white background. Two, black with brights. And Three, black with shiny... I have a lot of metallic and other shiny fabrics to use. Have a couple of really nice Fairy Frost type options, one a perfect ice blue but not quite enough for the entire project. Another light lavender that is... I am really loving the red-purples I have, I bought two for a different project and rejected them for that but they will be perfect for this!

I finally have the guest room set up in the house. I am sort of liking the idea of coordinating quilts on the main bed and the guest bed you can see both rooms at the same time from the hallway. So part of me says to go coordinating with the white on white background, to go with the Rhododendron Trail project. Part of me says, no, run away and do something completely different (like the black background).

On the Rhody Trail project, I considered using all solids but ended up using prints for the colors and solid white for the neutral. Plus I used up some solids extending the yardage I had for the back and for binding... But here's the last time I did Pinks and Purples with Bonnie (plus yellow and burgundy).

Note: Looking at the yardage requirements this Lupine project will have a lot less background. Our current project is only about 1/3 background instead of half.

phatquilts2

Ice this is a lovely quilt!!! What did Bonnie call it and from which year?
Thank you.

Iceblossom

That was Rhododendron Trail, it was 2021-22. It was the last one I did in Washington. Chilhowie was the next year -- I missed that one due to packing up and moving!
https://quiltville.com/shop.html#!/R...egory=55000149

Here's a great page of someone like JeanieG who has done most of the mysteries! Is nice to have an easy place to go to look at the names and years
https://moderndiary.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

Iceblossom

Not directly related, but I wanted to share the project/picture linked here.

Somehow in that Rhody Trail project I made DOUBLE the number of HST units needed... I had a big baggy of units that I threw in with my "crumbs" and sent them along to LAF2019 who made something lovely from them!
https://www.quiltingboard.com/vbulle...e-t326380.html

I hope you all are having some fun with fabric and thoughts. If I go with Bonnie's plan, I'm basically done pulling (after a couple more pinks). My purples are mostly reddish, my pinks are dark/bright and tend towards fuchsia. I have a weird mixed fabric that really wants to be used for the Ice Blue... it really isn't quite right, it's purple is more blue, it has more peach than pink, and those are maroon?? little spots and not either purple or pink. But it is insisting that it can play with the others and this might be the time to get used! I'm not convinced. The piece is big enough to be used for the entire color, I am concerned about the big blotches of purple connecting. Last time using all that peach worked out for me, I thought it was going to hit me in the face a lot more than it did... can I get away with a single piece again??

Here's a first pull of fabrics for that color way (omitting the white background). They've been a bit refined/filled in more now, a couple of the purples got put into the pink and I am looking at ice blues.

Also still looking at black background -- current favorites are for a bight saturated Teal for the purple, Yellow for the pink and orange-ish for the ice blue. Color wheel says that orange should go with the Teal better than some others but I'm still looking and playing.

Black and shiny sort of got turned into an exercise in "low volume" shiny. Stylistically and with my vision issues, I'm more high contrast but it has been fun playing with fabrics!