We all scream for Ice Cream

Forgot to post about my finished Harlequin Ice Cream quilt.

This was a block of the month mystery quilt sponsored by my quilt guild.  I sent my quilt top to my local long arm quilter, and she did a beautiful job with a swirly overall design.

I entered the quilt into our guild's annual quilt show, where it was displayed together with the other completed BOM's from our guild members.

Here is how mine looked, hanging in the show:

And here are some of the others:

These were all made from the same pattern of blocks, yet how different they all are depending on the color placement and the block layout.

This one used the exact same layout as mine, but the lights and mediums were in an alternate position in the block:

This one was made by my friend Rosemary.  She was the only one who used sashing between the blocks, and also the only one with a pieced border.

I'm not usually a fan of mystery quilts.  I like to know what something is going to look like before I invest the time into making it.  On the other hand, knowing that so many others were getting their quilts finished in time for the show was great motivation to get mine done too.

Ice Cream Social

When I last updated with my progress on my Quilt Guild's mystery quilt,  I had parts and pieces that looked like this:

With each month's instructions, we added a new strip or corner to the blocks, and by the end of 7 months, we had 24 blocks that looked like this:

The final step of instructions  included at least 11 different setting options.  It was fun to play with them all see which one worked out best.  To begin, I just laid out the blocks in a straight set:

Nah, didn't like it.  So I rotated the blocks and got this:

Ahh, much better, but this small sample shows mostly the pink.  How about when there is more brown?

Okay, still liking it, but gotta try one more to play up the scrappy nature of my fabrics:

Pretty happy with this one, but there was one more I had to try.  This time I needed to include lots more blocks to get the whole picture, so I laid these out on my bed:

Umm...no.  Too much going on.  In the end, I went with Option #4, and my finished top looks like this:

At our final guild meeting of the year, we all brought in our tops to share.  Here is a sampling of some of them:

As you can see, there was lots of versatility with this one block.  For our quilt guild's annual show,  we display all the finished BOM quilts together which is so interesting to view.  I better get mine quilted so I can be a part of it.

Enough with the snow already

The first couple of snowed-in days this winter were sort of fun once the preparations were in place.  Groceries? Check.  Batteries and candles?  Check.  Gas for the snowblower?  Check.  Plenty of fabric and  projects?  Double check!  But the whole snow day/sew day thing is getting kind of old....

The good news is that I had plenty of indoor time to devote to getting caught up on my guild's mystery quilt.  I have the first 4 steps completed, and it's still anyone's guess how this mystery will turn out.

While going through my fabrics I came across another mystery...this assortment of ziploc bags:

This was the current standing of a quilt that I started in a class back in 2009.  I remembered what it was supposed to look like...a Card Trick quilt, set on point, in a Garden Maze setting.  However,  I did not find any pattern directions so it was a bit of a mystery to figure out where I had left off.

I sorted through the bags,  and found that I had completed enough units to make 12  Card Trick blocks:

I have all the rows sewn together now, and will make them into a donation quilt.  There are lots of strips leftover that were intended for the Garden Maze setting, but I can use them for sashings and inner borders on future quilts.  There was also a large enough piece of the ginko leaf fabric that I can use  for borders or a backing.

Today was Day 7 of Beth Helfter's Drop and Give Me Twenty challenge, and with help from lots of snowy days I have managed to keep up with sewing at least 20 minutes each day so far.

Decisions, decisions...

I'm not a big fan of Mystery Quilts, and although our quilt guild runs one each year, I have only participated once. It's hard to make construction choices when you can't picture the finished quilt.

This year, my friend Rosemary suggested we give it a whirl.  The cost was only $7.00 for the pattern, and the hostess of the Mystery told me it could be made with scraps if I didn't want to purchase yardage.

I decided to jump on the bandwagon.   It is a lot of fun at the "big reveal" to see how everyone's quilts came out.

Step 1 was to choose three fabrics: a light, a dark and a medium.  I decided to raid my Civil War repro bin and this is what I came up with:

The plan was to use a variety of pinks and browns, but use the same tan fabric throughout.   During the Superbowl, I retreated to my sewing room and cut out all the pink and brown components.

I had the choice of 2 similar but different tan fabrics to use for the third color.   However....

the amount of yardage I needed was just a little more than I had of either of them! The whole time that I was cutting up the pinks and browns, I was debating whether or not I could just use a little of both.  My goal was to not  purchase any fabric for this quilt, but without knowing the final block pattern, I couldn't tell what effect it would have by using 2 fabrics instead of one. After much internal debate,  I decided to just go with a little of both.

I ironed the fabrics, and smoothed them out on the cutting table.  It was just then that I wondered whether there was enough contrast between the pinks and the tans, so I took a bunch of the pink squares and tossed them on top:

Not enough contrast. 

What little I knew about this Mystery quilt was that the third color should provide good contrast with the other two fabrics.  Now there was a new internal debate about whether the tan fabric would do the trick. (Did I mention I'm not a big fan of  Mystery quilts?)

In the end, I had to go to the quilt store and buy yardage for the third fabric.  I found a light beige with a tiny print that provided a much better contrast to the pinks.

I took my purchase home, washed it, ironed it, cut it out, and finally got to do some sewing.  Here is Step 2:

Switching  fabrics  provided me with the inspiration for the name of this quilt.  Instead of calling it "the Quilt Guild Mystery Quilt", I am going to call it "Harlequin", like the ice cream: