Easy Street Complete!

 Well except for the quilting part and how important is that in the stream of world events?
I added the 3 part border to bring it up to 98" x 98". First I was going to do a  piano key border, but it was just to dark, so I cut the keys into brick shaped four patches, which was better but it looked like an afterthought.

 So I added a 3" sleeve to the edges, free hand cut the curves, turned it under and used my machine to sitch it down. I like how it came out even though it went against my 'even' mentality.

I can live with it! And I learned a lot as I said in the post below.

Next up? Machine quilt Tsumani, a mystery from a couple of year ago, shown below. I have a lovely King Tut spool in variegated oranges/yellows/pinks.

Thank you all for joining in on whatever journey Bonnie sends us on, and enormous thanks to Bonnie for her gift of so much time and effort to share with us each year. See you all this fall!

Easy Street, Thy Name Is Complete-ish

Whew. 86 inches square...not quite as big as it felt when doing those last long seams.
All from stash with the exception of two yellow fat quarters.
All blocks built on the WWII era White Rotary shown a couple of posts back.
 All assembly on my dream machine  Janome 8900.

What did I learn this year?
I relearned finger pressing. I used to do it in the 80's don't know why I quit. Huge time saver. Final press when assembled, perfect. I'll take it.

Did I try something new? Leaders and Enders. I got 132 3" nine patches finished and a couple dozen partially completed while making Easy Street blocks at the same time. Easy and a brilliant idea...if piecing on a machine without an automatic thread cutter. I found trying to do them on the Janome was more trouble than it was worth, I love that tread cutter. 


A first? Using black and white prints. We all have them, and most of us pet them and put them back. My impression in the quilt? Wormy :) Too many things going too many directions. I'd still give it overall an A- and am glad they found some use.

Did I fail at something? Flying Geese. There are about 20 points cut off and that makes me very cross, my skills are better than that. So I'll do 50 more as practice. Because face it, they are great at getting the eye to move across the quilt. 

What would I do different? Darker constant and lighter greens.
It's lovely up close so I can live with it if you can...

My past mystery tops can be seen in older posts.

My plan for Bonnie Hunter's 2013 mystery? If we are so fortunate to be gifted with one, I'll be piecing on my Singer 66-18 converted to treadle. It has the cutest little feet. And makes the most soothing sound.

See you then~
and I'm always in at Quirkeries
Sharyn in Kalama

Easy Street Reveal and Coming Together

Well, the big reveal has come and gone and now we plug along on assembling our quilt top and do some Monday morning quarterbacking. I knew early on my constant didn't stand out enough from the background, but I can live with it.

I made a few changes from the original; I pieced the centers of the blocks, I redid the fat turkey blocks to make the star effect stand out more, and I changed the orientation of the border fat turkeys.

Here is the Monday Linky to many other mystery maker blogs

The big blocks look like turtles to me, I like that effect. Although the lower right turtle has swallowed his tail...and there is a four patch that has to be taken out and turned too. I have the distinct feeling there will a number of those 'how did I miss that mistake' moments.

We have a pretty new logo for the side bar in Bonnie's chosen colorway.

Quiltville Mystery and Mysterious Borders

Clue number five is tucked in with it's one, two, three, and four cohort clues. Yellow is feeling slighted. Constant wants reassurance it will be used in the border. Participants are kibitzing ideas while waiting for the big reveal. Will it be this Friday with clue six?

And what about the border mystery on Kudzu, in the last post?
The half-square triangles have morphed into 3" hourglass blocks with an exciting twist....ooolala, I do love to make quilts. The potential for creativity is boundless~

The hunt for a treadle is morphing also
and may involve pink. Or aqua. Or lime...now there is a thought.

This week's linky at Quiltville is here

Sunday Thankies
Rob might be home for the holiday
Scored the last Safeway Pumpkin Creme Pie in the county. Pie to die for. Trust me.
Life

While We Wait

I hope I have found the perfect quilter to send my special quilt tops to but while I wait for Quiltville's clue number five I realized the two tops I want to send are designed for a double bed. It is only recently we've upsized to a queen. So I've been working on adding borders. This is Kudzu and I happened to have a lot of extra components for baskets so am sewing them into half-square triangles.

How I'll use them is still a mystery too...haven't a clue.

Ort Jar and Mystery clue four

We had our first snow yesterday, such a pleasure to sit by the window and sew gooses together. The little Ort Jar is filling up with dog ears in a satisfactory way...

I have an ad in the local shopper paper for a good working treadle, egged on for years by a Canadian friend who uses her people-powered machines. Something to look forward to~

How many patches in the mystery to date? 2069 pieces by my count. We were up to 3000 or 4000 by this time last year. This Monday's linky

Roll Roll Cotton Boll, Take 2 plus Clue 3

Clue number three, 64 winged units of green and background, attached to 64 rust triangles. Here is our Monday linky.

With clue three in hand for Easy Street we are up to 1732 pieces and I've barely made a dent in my selected fabrics! According to the math wiz Jan in TN we will have 45% of the components done.

My self imposed learning task this mystery is remembering to do leaders and enders when starting and stopping rather than a raggedy little piece of fabric. My project is three inch nine patches for my big brother. They have a California King bed, so I expect it will take an enormous number of these  little blocks.

This is the front and the back of what will be a  comfort sized quilt when I finish quilting it, 70" X 50". This was a second RRCB, -> -> ->
 (number one is a few posts back) and my choice of colors was unfortunate, what was I thinking with all the grey and brown?(Sarah reminded me in comments that I picked them based on the horrific tsunami in Japan--now it does make sense)

and I managed to use up some of the leftovers on the back. I'm happy with these two pieces, and only have about 400 half square triangles left to use up.

Sunday Gratitudes
My Rob
My animals
My computer