Getting My Feet Wet, Thinking Local - Chester Creek, Week 1

There's a special feeling that comes with starting a new project. You have a clean slate and high expectations. I don't know what this quilt will look like - hence, the mystery - but I know it will be beautiful and I know the directions will be clear and precise and helpful.

My new project is Bonnie Hunter's 2020 Mystery Quilt-along. She has called it Grassy Creek, as she was inspired by a  creek of that name near her home in southern Virginia. Mine quilt is going to be called Chester Creek, for the creek nearest to me.

Screw you, Covid-19. I'm going to have fun staying at home and sewing. I have managed to get the fabric I need via mail-order (thank you Missouri Star), and I have put a new blade in my rotary cutter and would several bobbins. I even have new clips to keep the threads on my bobbins from unwinding. I have tried several different things to solve this problem and nothing has been satisfactory. I think these are going to work. 😊

The problem

The solution

What will Bonnie Hunter tell us to make first? Half-square triangles, using the golds and the greys! She offered several cutting methods. I chose to use the method which employs her Essential Triangle Tool. It seems to be the easiest.

Essential Triangle Tool

I really like the Essential Triangle Tool, but I did notice that it tended to slip when cutting a stack of four strips. I decided to add some sandpaper dots, and that seemed to lessen the GC 1-5slippage.

Sandpaper dot closeup

 

Another problem I encountered was the difficulty of cutting relatively narrow strips from the ends of the various one-yard cuts of fabric I was working with. In the past, I have generally worked with 1/4-yard cuts and I did not have to worry about cutting such lengthy strips. But this year, I had to order from Missouri Star and they have a 1-yard minimum for yardage. If I did another quilt like this, I would probably cut the pieces into 1/4-yard cuts before starting.

My third challenge was getting the finished size right. Bonnie Hunter said the seams should be "scant," but I usually ended up with finished squares that were too large, so I just sewed my regular 1/4" seams - which was easier to do - and my pieces ended up correctly sized.

Despite these minor issues, I finished Part 1 easily, and the pieces ended up looking very nice.

Part 1 pieces

Ta da! (Clue) One and done!

 

 

Chester Creek

Bonnie Hunter has released the colors for her 2020 Mystery Quilt-Along. Link to Bonnie Hunter's Mystery here: Grassy Creek - A Quiltville Mystery (Introduction!)

Bonnie's colors were inspired by the countryside surrounding her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. For the first time, I am going to deviate from Bonnie's colors. I am going to take my inspiration from the creek and forest near my home in Alaska. 

 We don't have a lot of reds and oranges in the woods here, so I am going to replace Bonnie's red with a plummy purple, and I will replace her orange with a dark, bluish green. I will stick with the other colors Bonnie chose: gold, yellow-green, white, and gray.

I will not be going into shops at this time. I ordered all of my fabric from Missouri Star Quilt Company. They got it here very quickly. I had to buy pieces which were a minimum of one yard, so that meant fewer different fabrics. The result will be less scrappy, but it will still be scrappy enough, I think.

It is a little hard to get the colors right when you order on line. I had to let go of my usual obsession with finding the exact shade. I am forced to accept a wider range of tones within each color group. I think this will be good for me.

Golds

 

 

 

Yellow Greens

Dark Greens

 

 

 

Plums

 

 

Grays

 

Whites

 

 

 

This time around I decided to take the time to pre-wash my fabric. Even though it is all high quality fabric, I have concerns about colors running and fabric shrinking. I washed the fabric in warm water and dried it in a medium dryer. 

 

You wouldn't believe the amount of unraveling that happened. I started out sewing a basting stitch about  1/4 inch from the edge. It didn't seem to prevent unraveling. I ended up sewing a zig-zag stitch as close to the edge as possible. It still unraveled a lot.

 

And it shrank. I didn't measure it scientifically, before and after, but each one yard piece seems to have shrunk about two inches. Some of that may resolve itself when I iron the fabric. This makes me worry about some of my previous projects. Most of those are unfinished, and most were not pre-washed. How will the fabric behave once it has been cut into small pieces and sewn to other small pieces? Should I worry? 

 

Well, I am really excited to begin this mystery quilt. Tomorrow is the day the first clue will be revealed!