Quiltville Old Town Mystery ~ Clue One

 Hello Scrap Happy Quilters!  I did it!  The first clue of the Old Town Quiltville Mystery is finished. 

 I started cutting fabrics late afternoon on Monday using Bonnie's ruler that I bought a couple of weeks ago. One set of test blocks shown below. Normally when making flying geese I use the four at a time method which requires larger pieces of fabric.  Using this ruler and sewing small pieces reminded me of my earlier years in quilting before discovering the rotary cutter, acrylic templates, rulers and quick piecing techniques.  One of these days I'll time Bonnie's ruler for flying geese and the four at a time method to see just how much time is saved, if any.

   On Tuesday I finished cutting the remaining blocks and had them completed by 9pm.

I was hoping to only work from scraps, but my lighter green scrap bin was lacking pieces large enough to make matching sets of flying geese.  So, I pulled a few fabrics from yardage and will use them if needed for the rest of the quilt.  

The white background fabrics used in these blocks is 100% from the scrap bins. Yes BINS, I have two bins overflowing with low volume white scrap prints.  

Let's take a quick look at Bonnie's Essential Triangle Tool Ruler.  Mine was purchased on Amazon.  It can also be purchase it on her website.

It comes with a booklet with great instructions for both rulers. The only thing I don't like about this ruler is the color of the lines. I prefer black lines because they show up better on fabric.  I use a lot of red and aqua in my quilts.  Those red and teal lines won't be easy to see.

Do you need this ruler to make a Bonnie quilt?  NO. I got a wild hair to buy her ruler.  All of the rulers below will work.  Plus, in the mystery quilt instructions she gives options for making the same unit without her rulers.

Before Bonnie designed her own ruler, she suggested the Companion Angle Ruler and the Easy Angle Ruler. I bought them years ago at Joann's when I first started thinking about making the yearly mystery quilt.  

They both come with basic instructions.  I've misplaced the instructions for the Easy Angle Ruler.

I'm not sure where, when or why I purchased the Fon's and Porter Ruler, but it too would work and has pretty good instructions.

If you're interested in the Quiltville Old Town FREE mystery quilt, you can find the first two free PDF's patterns here.  The first one tells you everything you need to know about the quilt along.  The second one is the instructions for the flying geese blocks.  The PDF's will be free until sometime in January or February 2025.  After that they will become a paid pattern on her website.  

You can see my three Quiltville Mystery quilt finishes here.

Besides publishing a blog, Bonnie also has a huge Facebook group, over 138,000 members. This time of year, is when it's the most active.  Many quilters are like me and change the suggested colors of the mystery quilt.  It's fun to see the different colorways come together into quilts.  There are some rules in order to join the group.  Join the group here.

Hope to see you there!

Pin It