~ Finishing last years En Provence Mystery quilt ~

   Hello sweet quilting friends!   The temperature outside is a very chilly -2 but indoors I'm trying to keep things sunny and warm by working on one of my most colorful UFO's.  This is Bonnie Hunters  Mystery quilt, En Provence.  This was my first attempt at joining in with a Mystery quilt along.  I did okay until it came to the borders.  The units were pieced and the body of the quilt was put together but I just couldn't find the time to put the borders on.  So that's my goal for this week....get this top completed and maybe on the quilt frame.

The mystery is over but the pattern can be purchased here.   Below is Bonnie's finished quilt.  

 I always follow along with the clues for Bonnie's mystery, but had never tried to make one.   This years mystery quilt is called On Ringo Lake, you can find all the clues up to this point here.  If you join Bonnie's Facebook you can get some great color inspiration,piecing help, as well as other quilts her followers are making.  My decision to make it or not will come after the big reveal.  The fabric has been pulled and purchased, but I'll not be using the suggested colors.  Last year I chose to go completely scrappy as suggested by Bonnie, but if I do it this year I'll be making mine with 4 different fabrics. 

I really love the super scrappiness of this one but cutting for it took FOREVER.  Mr. Podunk thinks it's very busy...eh...what does he know about quilting?!

This one depleted my PKM and low volume stash so I've spent most of the year replenishing them both.  Not an easy task when it comes to PKM since she and Holly no longer make fabrics.

I hope to see you in a couple of days with a completed top.  Send me some scrappy mojo vibes....I'm gonna need all the help I can get!

Thanks for stopping by my little spot in Podunk!

~ Lea Anne ~

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Scrappy Makes me Happy

Happy Monday quilting buds!  There's been a lot of design wall action going on in Podunk this past weekend. 

The Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt "En Provence" has taken over the studio.  If your interested in making one you can find all the FREE quilt clues by clicking here.  Bonnie also has a Facebook page that anyone can join and post pictures of their quilts.  Not just the mystery quilt but any quilt.  Its a fun group with a lot of amazing quilting inspiration.  You can find the Facebook Quiltville Open Studio by clicking here.  Of course you need a Facebook account to join this group.  I highly recommend joining.

En Provence has been quite the new adventure for me.  It's my first and probably my last mystery.  Oh I'll still save the clues to new quilt mysteries I find on the internet, but I'll wait for the reveal before making the first fabric cut.  I found this to fun but stressful.  Bonnie is a wonderful designer so the issue isn't with her pattern but more with me and how I like to quilt.  I need to see the quilt in order to choose fabrics.  That's pretty obvious by the looks of my quilt.

 I'm not saying I don't love this quilt because I do.  Scrappy makes me happy! Below is the first block I've stitched together.  Only 15 more to go!  Should you make this quilt I suggest you press all seams open, I did not.  There's a lot of bulky seams if you follow the pressing instructions in the pattern.  Quilting it is going to be the next big challenge.  But that's what this quilt was all about for me, getting out of my comfort zone.  The best way to handle bulky seams is to avoid quilting over them.  So I'm already playing around with a few quilting designs.  

The quilt is huge 87 x 87 but I'm considering adding to the border.  Below shows the border as written in the pattern.  I may add a thin strip of border followed by more more round of 4 patches....we'll see.

My design wall is completely full and I've still not laid out the top and left border.  Can you see the one lonely pieced block near the middle?  As the block and rows go together it'll make more room for the last two borders to be added to the design wall.   Standing back and looking at a quilt helps you to see the real quilt.  Taking a picture does an even better job.  The yellow in the white circle may need to be replace.  What do you think?  I can also see I've clustered light yellows and dark yellows together.  The picture also shows that even though my blues didn't work out as well as would have liked they still show a flow in the pattern.  Well I wanted a challenge, and I got it....geesh!

While I seem to be complaining a lot about this quilt.  The journey has been interesting.  Getting out of my comfort zone is always a learning experience.  That's what I want to do, GROW as a quilter.  Maybe I will do the next Bonnie mystery quilt at the end of this year just to see what I've learned from this one.  The year is still young and there's plenty of time for more learning before the next one is started.  

~ Lea Anne ~

For those of you that have been following me for a long time the next section of this post is for you.  It's an update on my Mom.  As you know I've spent the last several years helping and taking care of both my parents during their health issues.  Mainly Mom.  Mom's fight with cancer ended last Saturday January 7th.  She died at home, with me and dad.  There were several family members who also helped us along the way. I can't thank them enough for their help and support. I also want to thank each and everyone of you for your support and prayers.  Mom often told the doctors the reason she was able to fight the hard fight was due to all of my bloggers from around the world praying for her.

If you would like to read her obituary click the link below.

My beautiful mom Letia Mason

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It's all Bonnie's fault!

Here it is Monday morning again.  This last week flew by so fast.  I've made little progress on my Bonnie Hunter En Provence mystery quilt.  Finally last night while doing laundry I managed to get some cutting done for clue #4.  I might have over cut the background fabrics and under cut for the the main color.   

It seems either me or Bonnie miscalculated the fabric needed to complete this quilt.  So a purchase was necessary before continuing this mystery quilt.  It was a hard decision to make, buy fabric or not buy fabric?  Oh what's a girl to do?  Really Mr. Podunk I didn't want pretty new fabric in my stash.  I'm sorry Bonnie but I had to throw you under the bus in order to justify my fabric purchase with Mr. Podunk, I hope you understand and will forgive me.   Yes, Bonnie made me do it, it was her fault.  It's all a big conspiracy to boost fabric sales....that's my story and I'm sticking to it...LOL!

And to make matters worse I could only get one yard of this adorable floral by Pam Kitty.  Oh now isn't that just awful?  I guess I'll just have to do some more shopping to find something else that will work in this quilt.  It's a shame, really Mr. Podunk.

We wouldn't want all this hard work and pretty fabric to become another UFO now would we?  Well I guess for now I can try to make to due and finish clue #4 and 5.  But who knows what could happen with then next clue or two.  Bonnie might make me do more shopping.  

         

If your curious about this Bonnie gal who is promoting fabric buying, you can find out all you need to know about this devious(wink wink) gal and her mystery quilt over at her blog Quiltville.  Once you get to her blog click on the En Provence Mystery tab at the top.  You'll find all the subliminal messages you need for fabric shopping.

~ Lea Anne ~

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It's still a Mystery

Hi Quilting Friends!  So nice of you to stop by my little spot in Podunk.  I miss our time together and hope that things will get back to normal soon.  But in the meantime lets catch up on whats been going on since last week.  Let me tell you there's been a lot of stitching....and stitching....and of course a couple of rounds of ripping out stitching too!  That's okay, I can deal with the ripping out of stitches when I've a cute pile of chain stitching to remind me of the quilty goodness ahead.   Don't you just love it when the fabric piles up so pretty behind the machine?...picture perfect.

Those little triangle blocks below gave me a little trouble at first, but after the first two bad ones and a little quality time with my seam ripper it didn't take long to figure out what the problem was and that I didn't want anymore quality time with the seam ripper.  Quite the handy tool to have around when a gal needs it, but really...wouldn't we rather not need it!?

Well all the bad stuff is behind me(for now, anyway) and I'm loving how this coming along.  Now that the (221) white four patches, (168) blue four patches, and the (100) red triangle units are complete I can play with them.   Part of the fun of a mystery is trying to figure out where it will end before it ends.  Oh yes my Nancy Drew fans, it's just like that.  I'm more of a Steven King gal myself and you never know what kind of wild ride you're in for with him.  I'm hoping Bonnie Hunters Mystery quilts are more like Nancy Drew...a bit predictable.

Do you really think Bonnie's quilt could be so predictable as a simple star?  Oh surely not, I'm sure this weeks clue will put a real twist on the quilt design.  

Bonnie has named this quilt En Provence.  Lovely name, and I'm sure its going to be an amazing quilt design.  But I feel I need to rename mine.  My colors have given this quilt a whole new life.  Doesn't feel very French...no lavender fields...I'm seeing something a little more.....lets say...Hillbilly...Podunk.  I've scribbled down a few name ideas, hopefully by the time the quilt is finished I'll have settled on a name.  

Well my quilty friends that's all I have to share, but if you're in the mood for more En Provence inspiration just hop on over to Bonnie's Blog.   And don't forget this is a FREE mystery quilt and there's still plenty of time to join in the fun.  If nothing else save the patterns for a rainy day.  Bonnie sometimes will remove patterns from her blog so she can put them in a book.  Get'em while you can!  Just click on the En Provence tab at the top of her blog.  

For even more quilty inspiration you can hop over to PatchworkTimes for Design Wall Monday.  and FreeMotionbytheRiver for Linky Tueesday.

~ Lea Anne ~

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Breaking out of my Comfort Zone

I know by the looks of this first picture my loyal followers are thinking everything looks normal, what is this gal talking about.  She's pulled a bunch of happy bright fabrics that are well within her comfort zone.  

Now let's get to the uncomfortable part of this fabric pull.  It's for the Bonnie Hunter En Provence Mystery quilt.  That's right my loyal quilting buddies I've decided to jump on the board the mystery train!  It's a first for me.  Typically I don't do mysteries for fear of not liking the pattern.  To be honest I've never seen a Bonnie quilt I disliked, so why not make one?!  It works into my very busy schedule right now.  I mean she does all the quilty math and its FREE!  But I must admit I can't jump completely on board this train.  The paint chips below are Bonnie's color pallet for this quilt.  You all know the problem, right?  PURPLE!  I don't do purple very often, so I'm changing it to a more Podunk friendly pallet.

The purples will be replaced with these lovely blues.

And that magenta Bonnie chose as the focus fabric, well it's not sitting right with me either.  So with the wave of my quilty wand it was changed it to red.  By the way I had to order the red.  After digging through my stash I found one little piece of it and decided it was the perfect shade of red, but it's from an older line of fabric.  After a long search on the internet I found the Tasha Noel print at MixFabrics.  It was reasonably priced and arrived quickly.

The green and the yellow fabrics below are just a pull.  I'm sure some of them will not make it into the quilt.

I've already started weeding out the low volume fabrics.  Below is what I plan to use, but plans can change quickly in Podunk.

These little cuties were the first to make the cut.  I felt the print was too large or too bold on each of these.

 So the mystery has begun with this cute little 3.5 block.  It's clue #2....yes I've already fallen behind.  But I've a couple of days of free time to catch up.

 So how many of you are doing the mystery?  Are you at least saving the free patterns?  Bonnie makes it very easy to save them, she has them available in PDF format.  If all this is news to you and your curiosity is up, why not head over to Bonnie's blog right now to find out what all the hub-bub is about.  There's hundreds...maybe thousands of quilters making this quilt.  Today is the linky party for clue #2.  Just click right here to be inspired by so many quilters making the En Provence Mystery Quilt.  If you want the clues to this quilt you need to go to the top of her page in the link I provided.  You'll see a tab at the top that says En Provence, click it!  Hope to see some of you there!

~ Lea Anne ~

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