Grand Illision Clue 5

Grand Illusion Clue 5

I finished up clue 5 while watching Bonnie Hunter's webcam about 8 hours after it was live.

Bonnie Hunter's mystery

Here is my quilting partner, Gabe.

I am machine quilting Blue Moon. a kit I bought at the Bernina quilt shop.  I am using a wool batting for the first time and it is showing more depth to the quilting, especially on the back.  It is so large that it is not a great deal of fun manhandling it. I am using Sulky30 weight variegated thread on top and plain regular weight navy in the bottom.  I am having quite a bit of thread breakage.  Once again....not a great deal of fun.

 

Love to Read??

Let's Read

I created a google spreadsheet of the 2015 reading challenge. The reading challenge is Here.  If anyone wants to join, feel free to email me (etuss45@gmail.com), and I will add you.   It is a list of 50 different books which may diversify your reading.  As the challenge states, you don't have to read all 50, so join us,  Since it was suggested by Kim to two of her teacher friends, we started during Christmas vacation.  We might get to know some new authors.

I got my computer back from HP.  They replaced the hard drive, so it has been time consuming to reload everything,  I have been posting as frequently as I had planned because I just couldn't figure out how to get the pic from the ipad onto the blog (on ipad),

I finished the first 3 clues of Bonnie Hunter's mystery Grand Illusion a day before clue 4 comes out. I am getting anxious to see how all of this is going to go together. I don't have prints for my neutrals, and I think I am going to like it.  

I worked on this little mug mat.  I am not real excited about how the edges turned out, but it will be functional  There are some others in the set.  I wonder if I will do them????

I did a bit of Christmas shopping.  The traffic was pretty crazy.  I still have stocking stuffers to buy.  Gifts are mostly done.  I have some binding to put on place mats and have to make another trip to the bank.

I am working on Christmas presents (can't show those at this time)  in between working on step 2 of the Grand Illusion mystery quilt.

I am using Bonnie Hunter directions #2 for the block.  The seams are not matching no matter how I pin or sew.  I have unsewn and resewn several times and just decided that I would live with them being a little off.



Here are some Christmas wallhangings that I put up:

I am catching a cold, but decided to stay home from exercise and sew........  I discovered that I do like the bigger 6.5 easy angle ruler when I am standing up cutting.

So, I am all done with the 100 units.  I have 40 of the 80 half square triangles that we are to set aside.

Boy, my yellow squares sure look orange.  I will have to look at the colors on my phone.

I posted a picture of this when the top was done  Now it has been machine quilted on my brother VQ3000 and bound.  I am bummed that I missed quilt cam tonight for no good reason.  I could have been sewing my binding while watching Bonnie Hunter on quilt cam instead of watching Netflix.  I can't remember when I started this, but I think it was last fall.  It is a pattern from Bonnie Hunter's Spring Fling book.  I did buy a couple of fat quarters of red and my friend Marge gave me some of her reds. I didn't count the fabric in my used this year yardage except for the back because I layered it after my start date of January 27, 2014.

Here is a close up of the quilting.  Once again I forgot to put a label on.  

I used a variegated red thread and like how that turned out.  I was going to use a 30 weight sulky, but I am glad I used a 40 weight thread because it stands out enough.

I finished this in mid March, but didn't take a picture of it.  I used all materials from my stash.  I used about 4.5 yards.  I weigh the scraps and then convert it to yards.  I did use yardage for the back and the tone on tone blocks that became the sashing.  I had a lot of small pieces of bugs, frogs, etc to make a bug jar quilt for years, but making one block was enough for me without an intended recipient.

Here is where I got the pattern.  

http://obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com/2010/05/disappearing-nine.html

Well, I have used 23 yards of my stash fabric since January 27, 2014!!  This is Bonnie Hunter's I Spy 4 Patch  I just alternated my two fabrics instead of making each one a different children's fabric.

This is a closer picture.  My laser light makes this quilting a snap

Finally, this is finished.  I can't really remember when I started working on it, but it has been on my mind for a number of years  A design similiar to this was on the opening of AlexAnderson's Simply Quilts television show. So, first I purchased a book by Barbara Kaempfer called Log Cabin with a Twist.

  Then I dyed 40 pieces of fabric.  Each colorway has 5 gradations of color. I started with a half yard of each one, which is 20 yards of fabric. I was only able to do fat quarters on my last color turquoise because I must have run short of fabric.  What???? I must not have measured correctly.......or maybe it was the clerk who sold it to me! VBG

The book has paper piecing templates in the back, so I let the fabric age for a year or two because I am not a big fan of paper piecing.Then I found an embroidery design and ended up doing the 44 blocks on my embroidery machine.  I got the colors wrong and had to redo three of them and also trying to save a little fabric I cut some of my pieces too small and those blocks had to be redone.  The quilting stitches are done with 30 weight varigated sulky thread.  I threw out a block or two while trying to decide the thread color.  Now it is hanging on my wall, and I am very happy. One less project cluttering up my brain.,