The Mystery Begins...

It's that time of year again - Bonnie Hunter released the first clue for this year's mystery quilt on Friday!  It took me a while to decide on fabrics this year.  I didn't really have the colors Bonnie is using in my stash so I had to come up with another combination that would work. After trying numerous combinations, I found inspiration in a fat quarter bundle that was given to me by a friend a couple of years ago. I had quite a bit of these colors in my stash, including more than 5 yards of a batik to use for background. I had to order a couple of yards to supplement the mauve colorway - my stash is a bit short on anything that vaguely resembles pink - but I was able to cover the rest (about 18 yards). Probably a good thing since these colors don't seem to be "in" these days!

I spent Black Friday working on wool applique at Nola's, so I didn't get started on cutting for the first clue until Saturday.  Nola's BF event was wonderful!  She helped me come up with a color plan for the new pattern I picked up from Anita.  I am going with a deep red background - I can't wait to get started on it!

I finished my cutting by Saturday afternoon and then sat down to start sewing.  I didn't get very far on Saturday - had to take a break to do a little Christmas shopping - but all was going well.  My finished blocks measured 3.5" square - whew! 

I resumed my position at the sewing machine on Sunday, determined to finish step one.  I felt like I was making fantastic progress when it suddenly occurred to me that the purple "recs" pieces seemed to be disappearing much more rapidly than the mauve and background "tri" counterparts. A quick mental review of my cutting math revealed that I omitted the fact that I needed two "recs" per "tri" in my calculation. Argh!  So I now need to cut 95 more pairs of purple pieces.I decided to save that fun for later in the week and just kept sewing.  I didn't get nearly as far as I hoped, but I made a lot of progress.

Rather than returning to the sewing room after dinner last night, I decided to spend a little more time on my Vines & Flowers rug that I started a couple of weeks ago with Anita White. The background did prove to be a bit of a challenge in color planning, but I am really liking the way it is turning out.  It is actually kind of nice to have a background to hook after spending a year and a half on a geometric!
 

It's such a bummer to have to return to work this week!  I would love to get back to the sewing room to finish up step one...I hate when I fall behind from the very beginning! 

Be sure to check Bonnie's page to see how everyone else is progressing on week one of the Celtic Solstice project!