My first Mystery Quilt

My Mom and I have been following  Bonnie Hunter at www.quiltville.blogspot.com this past year. Every year she provides a free mystery quilt to her readers to show her appreciation. We have decided to embark on this journey and try something new. This years mystery is called Celtic Solstice. The first thing we needed to do was gather all of our fabric. She provided the numbers of paint chip cards from Lowe's to help out. Keep in mind that this started in October this past year. Bonnie gives the first clue the day after Thanksgiving and then publishes a clue every week for the blocks you are to make.

The very first week we had to make 200 blocks that are only 3 1/2 inch square. What did I get myself into? The first 2 rows in the photo to the left are from week 1.



 Week 2 was even worse with all the little pieces that went into one tiny little block! And this is where I got behind for a while. Not to mention this was all going on during the Holidays. I can't believe I even managed to get a Christmas tree up this year.

Almost There

And the block building continues to grow and grow!















At this point we are wondering how this is all going to come together and then on New Years Day our final clue arrives. It is the REVEAL! We finally have instructions on how to put all these thousands of pieces together into a very beautiful quilt top. Oh, except I don't have all mine finished yet. So now the race is on and I have been sewing, sewing and sewing some more.Then I realized I had better clean out the machine and put in a fresh needle to start putting all of those blocks together. It's amazing how much lint accumulates in there!

 Lots of Lint!



Finally started placing pieces up on my design wall to see the result. The final layout will have 7 rows across and 7 rows down with added borders all around. The first pic is the original design for the mystery quilt. I decided to go with alternating the yellow and green blocks to give it a slightly different look. I am really liking this. It has been a lot of fun doing this with my Mom. Everyday we talk and see how far the other one is. It will be a while yet till we finish this crazy quilt and then on to another project.

On my design wall

As of this post I have the first three rows sewn into blocks. 21 blocks done, 28 to go. Then to do borders, quilt it and bind it. Might be a while. I will post my progress along the way.
Linking up to  Mystery Monday Link-Up, Part 6!

Hope you enjoyed my post. Blogging is a new adventure. I'm hoping this will help me get some projects completed.

Chris