Monday, June 8, 2015

My First Mystery Quilt

Bonnie Hunter is a nationally-known quilter.  Her website is quiltville.com.  She does scrappy quilts.  I have had the pleasure of taking a couple of classes from Bonnie and she's a wonderful teacher.  

Each year, she publishes clues for a mystery quilt.  The clue on what colors she used comes out in early November so you can go shopping for fabric.  The first clue for blocks comes out on Friday after Thanksgiving.  She releases a clue a week until the Friday after New Year's.  If you keep up with her, you will have a completed quilt.  

For the past three years, I have intended to complete the mystery quilt.  Year 1 (Easy Street), I have the fabrics and completed clue 1.  Easy Street contains lime green and it doesn't speak to me.  I think I'm going to have to swap out the lime green to bring the quilt to completion.  

Year 2 (Celtic Solstice), I have the fabrics.  It's a beautiful blend of shirtings, blues, greens, and oranges.  It is on my to-do list.  

Year 3 was Grand Illusion.  The inspiration came from the Grand Island Hotel on Mackinaw Island.  The colors are yellow, aqua, grass green, pink, black and white.  Bonnie pulls paint chips from her local Lowe's and provides the colors so we have a better representation of the quilt colors than the colors on a computer monitor.  

Here's the quilt in progress.  My white has a design on it with all the colors in the rest of the quilt.  The design is dogs, chickens, butterflies, leaves, etc.  I just love it.


I love the border.  To me, it looks like flowers in bloom.  After I finished the quilt, I asked my granddaughter, Sarah -- the artist, for her opinion on the binding and she said green.  So here's the final...
I don't have a quilt that I have made.  I usually make quilts and give them away.  This one is staying with me.  It's a biggie -- 88" x 88".