~ Cutting Time from Cutting Time ~

Part 2 of the Good Fortune Mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter was revealed on Friday.  One of the reasons I like Bonnie's mystery quilts is the speed at which the clues are released.  The yearly mystery starts on Black Friday and a new clue is released every Friday until the big reveal.  The final clue and quilt reveal can be at anytime it's all part of the fun of this mystery.  But usually it will end  around New Years, give or take a week or two.  Another great thing is you don't need to sign up for anything.  You simply go to Bonnie's blog.  The clue is posted on her blog as a tutorial or there's a PDF you can download and print.  If you would like to join in the fun or just see what all the hubbub is about you can find all the information about the Good Fortune Mystery by Clicking Here.  

The picture below is a few of the HST's for this clue arranged into a sweet little pinwheel.  Playtime is an important part of quilting, right?.....LOL!

The suggested color pallet for this years mystery is bright and happy.  But I've chosen to go a different pallet.  Not an easy decision to make.  Happy and bright is the best colorway!  You can see more about my color choices and Clue 1 here.  After making a few Clue 1 units (48 I think), I decided to narrow down my browns by eliminating the smaller scraps.  

The reason for this is TIME.  I would like to keep up with this mystery. Finishing each clue before the next is released.  Cutting one HST at a time is very time consuming.  Not to mention I'm also piecing another Bonnie quilt at the same time.  You can see the start of my version of On Ringo Lake here.  Since I'm trying to make 2 quilts in record time you would think I would have thought this through and  chosen the fastest and easiest methods for cutting and piecing.  Nope, I had this crazy idea to use the Easy Angle  It's the same as the Essentials Triangle Tool that Bonnie suggests in the directions for clue 1.  The Easy Angle is the ruler Bonnie USED to use for making HST's.   

Here's the video  Bonnie made  that sold me on Easy Angle ruler a few years ago. 

Both rulers are great if your working from strips and have nothing to do but cut fabric for hours on end.  Unfortunately I don't have that kind of time.  Bonnie says to slow down and enjoy the process.  Well sometimes one persons enjoyment is not another's.  Seeing these two quilts quilted and bound by the end of January.....Now that would bring me great joy!    I need to find a quicker way to get this weeks clue done fast.  A few years ago I saw a method on the Fon's and Porter PBS show.  Joe Morton was the guest for the day.  She shared a new to me way of making 8 HST's a time, Magic 8.  Yes 8 at time!  Just make an X on the back of 1 fabric layered with a other fabric square of the same size and ZIPPITY-DO-DAH you have 8 HST's.   It's been so long since last using this method I can't remember if my results were as accurate as the Easy Angle. I'll be doing a test of this method later in the week.  If you would like to try the Magic 8 method here's a good tutorial and printable chart for making them by Karen of Laugh Yourself into Stitches blog.  She also has a YouTube video for the Magic 8 here.

Look at this!  Each one is perfect, no trimming!

All I had to do was clip one little wing from each HST.  They really do turn out perfect.  I just love the two brown prints in the picture below.  Since I'm not working with my normal bright colors I'm looking for things about the fabric or the quilt to keep me excited.  If I lose that excitement the quilt will quickly become a UFO.  You've heard the saying "Its the little things".  How true it is.  Finding enjoyment in the small things can change your whole world.  So while I may not be a fan of brown fabric I do love nature and the colors of fall.  So these little bits of orange and tan nested among the brown remind me how much I love to go walking on sunny but cool fall day.    

Linking up this post to Quiltville Blog.  Hop on over to see oodles of Good Fortune inspiration!  Or better yet Join the party!  Click here!

There's a Giveaway on my blog this week.  Click here to read all about it!

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~ Good Fortune ~ Clue 1 ~

I've long said that every quilt I design or make has a story to tell. I'm an emotional quilter and those emotions sometimes find their way into my stitching.  Over the last few months my color pallet has been an emotional roller coaster.  My normal pallet of happy brights has turned to black and orange, and now to the darker scraps from my earlier years of quilting.  This cute little wheel of 4 patches has a story to tell.  I understand full well what it means but I'll save you the drama and just tell you my heart is on the mend.  The blacks fabric days are behind me for awhile.  The next time I pull them out hopefully will be because I need a new black and white quilt to go with the ones I made this year.

Deciding on a color pallet for the Good Fortune FREE Mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville was quite a chore.   As a quilt pattern designer my process for designing is a little different than most designers.  Most designers see a line of fabric and a quilt design is born from the fabric.  My designs come from inspiration in any form and it's rarely from a line of fabric.  It can come from the season change, a flower, a TV show, a trip to Hobby Lobby, really just about anything can spark a quilt design.  So choosing fabrics before I know the design of the quilt is quite the challenge for me.  Working out of my comfort zone adds a little bit of excitement to my very structured life in Podunk.  We live a fairly boring life out here in the middle of nowhere.  So these challenges give me the drama that most of humans crave.  It's much nicer than a episode of Jerry Springer or watching the news.  

So I started pulling my fabrics as soon as Bonnie released the color pallet she chose for her quilt.  You can find the introduction to the Good Fortune Mystery quilt by CLICKING HERE.  My original plan was to use the colors suggested by Bonnie.  Well I was lacking the colors in my scraps, so I started pulling from fat quarters and was still lacking.  Then the planned to stick with her colors quickly changed to I'm gonna do this one in my favorite colors and dearly loved collection(hoard) of Lakehouse Drygoods fabrics.

At this point I'm in Bonnie's Facebook group, Quiltville's Open Studio, seeing quilters pull from their stash and scraps.  Most are staying with the suggested pallet.  So I want to be like them, join the club, walk the line of conformity.  So another pull of fabrics begins.  This time from my old scrap stash in the suggested colors.  Very few fat quarters hiding in these bins.  Most pieces are sizes that would be thrown out by the average quilter.  Not me, I've always saved every insanely small piece.  They could be used as applique as small as a dime.  Well after this day of digging I still don't have what's needed and will need to order fabric.  My thoughts were "If I'm going to order fabric, I might as well use fabric from my first pull of more recent fabrics and order what I need to stay with Bonnies suggested colors."  So that's what I did.  I ordered fabric.

So I'm all set and ready to go!.....WRONG!  I had time to think, read and see what others were doing in her Quiltville Open Studio.  Some of these gals are serious Scrap busters.  I kinda felt like they were ganging up on me without saying a word.  They are pulling from scraps and using what colors they have.  That's why I want to do this mystery!  Use up those scrap bins!  Okay, okay, okay I got this!  I will pull only from my scrap bins, I'm allowed to purchase fabric if I need to.

At last... I pulled all of the creamy neutrals from my scrap bins.  The dark browns needed a couple fat quarters added to the mix but they were not purchased they came from my older civil war reproduction fabrics.  The greens are 100% from the scrap bins. Gold and red both were lacking.  The gold almost none in my scrap bins but I had a few yardage pieces in the stash.  There still wasn't enough for me to feel comfortable about calling it the scrap look.  So I purchased 2 Fat quarters. Then the reds/burgundy were also lacking.  I pulled 3 fat quarters from the stash and purchased a couple from my favorite Local quilt shop on small business Saturday.  The shop is called Coffee Cup Quilting.  It's a nice little shop with the friendliest owner, Claranna.  Her prices are amazingly low compared to other quilt shops around here or online.  Fat quarters under $2, and she'll cut as many as you want!

Al last I'm happy with my pull and I feel as if I'm making a considerable dent in my scrap bins. Let me tell you, cutting from scraps is a real chore.  Yes I'm complaining but I will follow up with I know that big chore is going to produce an amazing quilt.  It's worth the hours spent cutting.  Because some of my scraps were small I couldn't strip piece all of them.  I wanted to make sure all 4 fabrics in the 4 patches were different, so I laid out several on my mini design boards.

 As I was finger pressing HUNDREDS of twosies I found this.  I'll need to be a little more careful when strip piecing. Not sure it would have even been noticeable in the quilt and I considered using it anyway.   But what the heck lets cut and sew one more, really what's one more after HUNDREDS!

 It feels so good to have the first clue finished and stored away.  I'm putting my units in these cute little boxes from the Fat Quarter Shops Monthly Sew Sampler.  When I was saving them I had no idea why, but knew they would come in handy someday.  I only have 6, lets hope that's enough for all the clues.  Now lets talk about those clues.  I was looking at the yardage requirements for this mystery.  Does anyone else find the neutrals to be excessive? The average quilt in the size she says it finishes uses around 5 yds of background fabric,  Bonnie's mystery is out of that range.  My trained quilty mind says there's either lots of white space or there's lots of tiny pieces.  And by tiny I'm wondering if this one has some string piecing to go along with her new book String Frenzy.  Something to think about!  

Well I'm off to ship orders from my pattern sale this weekend.  Today is the last day of the sale.  And it's the last sale of the year.  Now is a good time to get those patterns at great prices.  This sale is all patterns PDF and Mailed that are in my Etsy Shop.  CLICK HERE TO START SHOPPING.

This post is being linked up at 

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/11/mystery-monday-link-up-and-cyber-monday.html

Hop on over and be inspired by all the Good Fortune quilts!

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#goodfortunequilt 

#bonniehuntermysteryquilt 

#bonniehunter 

#goodfortunemysteryquilt2018

#quiltvillemystery

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~ My Good Fortune ~

        Well I'd love to tell you I won the recent massive lottery, or that a huge bag of money fell out of the sky into my backyard.  But my good fortune has nothing to do with daydreams of sudden wealth.

 Now that I have your attention lets talk about a new mystery quilt along called Good Fortune. 

The hostess is Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.  Most of my followers know Bonnie but for those of you that are new to the quilting world let me tell you a little about her.  Bonnie a super talented quilt designer that breaks all the rules.  She rarely drops fabric manufacturer names, she doesn't lead you astray on new gimmicky notions or products.  She will however help you in your quest to make beautiful quilts from whatever fabric you have on hand.  Her most famous books that put her on the map with quilters all over the world were about cutting up men's shirts purchased at thrifts shops....and yes...making quilts out of them!  She also has developed a scrap saving system that makes scrap quilting easy(if you apply it).  Click here and Here to read about the best scrap system ever.

Bonnie's tutorial for cutting fabrics correctly change my quilty life, check it out here.  

After you catch the Bonnie Bug you also might want to look at her free patterns page here.  Make sure you go all the way to the bottom for clues to past mystery quilts still available for free.  It will give you an idea of how this years mystery will play out and weather or not you'd like to join the fun.

Back to the Mystery quilt along.  It's a yearly event, I say event because thousands of quilters make these quilts every year.  Quilt shops put together bundles of fabric for the mystery.  And Lowe's hardware has been known to get kinda mad at quilters taking too many paint cards.  Bonnie finds paint cards to match the colors she used in the quilt.  She even tells you what numbers are on the cards.    Quiltville's Open Studio on Facebook is where all the Bonnie stalkers hang out, waiting patiently all year for the next set of clues.  Joining the group is a must, there's so much going on all year long. 

  A couple of years ago I played along with the mystery.  It took a year or more for me to finish.  Not because it was a hard quilt to make, but because that's how I roll!  My finished En Provence Mystery quilt can be seen here.  

The introduction for this year quilt, Good Fortune, was released on Halloween.  The colors are a little more in my color pallet than in past years.   The one mystery I did make I changed the colors.

And by the looks of these oranges there may be a change this year also.  Two of my latest quilts have had orange in them.  I was looking forward to putting those orange fabrics back on the shelf.

 I'm starting to feel like my home is wrapped in orange. 

I can do this, just one more quilt with orange.  So I started pulling fabric from the yardage and fat quarters.  Plenty of orange, red and green. But lacking blues and loving the pinks with the reds.

 Since pulling from fat quarters and yardage didn't produce the needed colors I decided to pull out the scraps.  Now let me say I love Bonnie's scrap saver system.  It looks amazing and I'm sure it works well.  In order for it work you must apply it to your scraps....I do not.  Why?   Phobia #158...cutting scraps then needing a different size.   Yes that's right, I'm afraid to cut fabrics that rarely see the light of day.  Well they aired out really well a couple of days ago.  The pictures are blurry but who needs to see a mess clearly.

By 7 AM Thursday

 9 AM Thursday total chaos. The feeling came over me to throw all of my blue scraps in the trash.  What a mess! So I quickly put them all back in the scrap bins. 

9 AM Friday- all was back to normal, new fabric was ordered to make up for my lack of colors in larger more uniform pieces.  The scrap bins are a job for another day.

Are you making the Good Fortune Mystery quilt? Are you changing the colors? 

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