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!