On Ringo Lake, Part One - Wading In

I am so excited that Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery quilt has started! I have looked forward to this for months. The mystery quilt is called On Ringo Lake and you can link to it here.

A few weeks ago Bonnie released the colors for this year's mystery quilt. I LOVE these colors.

I shopped hard for theses fabrics. It was not easy to find fabrics I like. I was looking for smallish prints. I saw many prints that were quite large and I personally don't like to use them in a quilt with a lot of small pieces. I will probably have to go back and buy more of the prints I bought on my first circuit of shopping, but I can't remember which store some of these fabrics came from.

This was also the first time I had some fabric in my stash that I could use. Yippee! I have progressed towards being a bona fide quilter.

The first clue requires us to make some nine-patches. They turned out to be harder than I expected. I carefully followed Bonnie's very detailed, very clear cutting instructions, and I think I did a good job. I sewed strips together to make strips of three. But by the time I started sewing the strips-of-three together, I was beginning to have problems. They didn't match up at the edges and sometimes the center corners were off.

I ripped out a LOT of seams. I began to realize that I needed to press as carefully as I was cutting, and I needed to pin very carefully, too. These pieces are so small that the alignment can be thrown out of whack very easily.

Finally:

I made yesterday a Sewing Day and invited some friends over. I love having someone to discuss the intricacies of various quilting projects with. The sharing, the exchange of ideas, the feedback - it's a wonderful way to sew. It's also more fun and interesting to experiment when others are around.

Susan tested fabric samples to see if they would bleed. Once burned, twice shy.

Lessons learned:

• Press seams very carefully to flatten out the fold. It can make a big difference.
• Pin carefully to make sure nested seams are aligned.
• Sewing with friends is great fun.

Herald Square - June 2015 BOM

This block is called Herald Square. I like the way the points came out. I think my new sewing machine makes it easier to sew more accurate seams and that makes it easier to turn out good points.

MORE pink

I don't like the colors so much. Too much pink/red, not enough blue and yellow. But that's what they gave me. I also don't like that dark green. It's not a nice color and it doesn't contrast enough with the print. True, I substituted prints, but I don't think it would contrast enough with the black background of the original print. I like a lot of contrast.


Now we are halfway through the year.  The first three blocks have a 9-patch center, which unifies the look of the project,  and they all have a bit of yellow and blue, which makes it pop. I like these three pieces together.

The next three months don't even look like they came from the same quilt as the first three. They are REALLY pink. They have lost that 9-patch center, though they do still have a single small square in the center. I think they are less attractive patterns.

I'm not sure how it's going to look in the finished quilt top. I may have to fiddle around with the layout to make sure the blue and yellow pieces don't end up in one corner and all the pinks in the opposite corner.