My friend asked me if I would like to make a Bonnie Hunter "Mystery quilt" with her. I've never followed Bonnie, but I'm aware that she's a very famous quilter. Her mystery quilt was called Grassy Creek and had reds, oranges, greens, yellows and grays. I had a fun, interesting, frustrating and learning curve experience!
When you post about Bonnie's clues on social media, you cannot state the dimensions of your block, it's against the rules and people (Bonnie's followers) will call you out for it. I'm talking about innocently taking a photo of your blocks on your cutting board. The reason for this is that once she reveals the finished quilt, the instructions only stay on her blog for a few weeks. After that, the pattern is published.
This is Clue #1, half square triangles. I forgot to mention that my friend Nedra and I were making a half size of Bonnie's quilt which is totally acceptable. A throw size is what I prefer anyway.
The clues came out every Friday morning and it began in December, so I was worried about the time commitment. I was able to keep up with Bonnie AND Nedra, because I work really well when I have a deadline.
Cue #2 was a stack ( I can't say how many) of quarter square triangles.
I love seeing the little pile of trimmings, it shows how hard i worked!
Here's my creative photo :)
Clue #3 is tricky triangles or quarter square triangles. I loved making these ones.
Clue #4 is tricky triangles added upon.
There's quite a stack, and I'm only making half of the quilt!
Bonnie said that Clue #5 was more simple because it was right before Christmas. 9 patches, some flying geese, squares and rectangles.
It still took quite a while to do all this!
Clue #6 is foundation paper piecing with half square triangles at each end. These took a lot of time, but I was really in the swing of keeping up with the clues and excited to see what they were each week!
There was no clue #7, just the big reveal! I felt like I was driving in a car and someone slammed on the brakes. What? I'm not ready for the reveal yet, I'm still enjoying the journey. Well, the big reveal had tons more for us to do. I thought the quilt would be constructed by blocks, but it was put together in rows.
Here's another block, putting various clues together.
Long story short, I'm not really crazy about the quilt. I think the gray is too strong and those gray shapes look like footballs. I like the green and yellow medallions with the red centers. I made so many mistakes, I used my trust little seam ripper a lot. It was taking way too long to put the rows together, especially since I wasn't enjoying the outcome anymore. I even "added" an Amish mistake! I decided to put a pieced border at the top and a mirror one on the bottom. In the end, both borders don't even match! I also decided that I would use this quilt as a tablecloth when I need one at church to display things. This quilt won't go in the grandchildren pile as I doubt any of the kiddies will be interested in it.
Upon further examination, I think my quilt looks like a kaleidoscope and I'm happy with that ❤️
In my Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt experience, I learned that I love to look at "scrappy" quilts with little pieces but I don't really like making them too much!
