On Ringo Lake(A Podunk Picnic) Finish

 Finishing a Quiltville Mystery is a major accomplishment in my quilting world.  I don't typically make quilts with so many little pieces.  Bonnie style of quilting is a little bit more classic/traditional than my style.  Every once in awhile it's good to get out of the comfort zone.

The challenge isn't just in the tiny pieces that are for the most part cut individually.  Choosing fabrics for a mystery can be challenging since I almost always change the colors.  Thank goodness she gives us a month to choose fabrics before the first clue is released.  It usually takes that long for me to commit to a color pallet.   My scrap bins are not over flowing with my pallet of choice.  So when I make a Bonnie quilt I'm cutting from scraps all the way up to yardage.

I'm not one of those quilters who counts how many prints or how many pieces are in a quilt but I can tell you there is A LOT of both in mine.  One of the good things about finally finishing this quilt is I can finally put all those larger pieces of fabric back in my stash cabinet.

Quilting this beauty went fairly quick since I chose to to almost 100% free motion.  My quilting plan was to keep the quilting fairly light.  I had an idea but the idea didn't work, so I just added a little more quilting until I was satisfied with the look of the quilting.  My plan was to only quilt in the white areas and the yellow sashing pieces.  In my mind it looked great but once on the quilt it left to much poof in the corners of the blocks.  Adding quilting to the yellow and green areas of each corner balanced out the quilting and pleased my picky eyes.  I also hadn't planned to do feathers in the border.  The plan was for straight line ruler work.  But feathers are quicker so feathers it is.  

The backing is pretty boring compared to the front of the quilt.   Just one happy little yellow heart for the label.  I've recently started adding the label to the backing before quilting the quilt.  This is a sure fire way to make sure the label is never removed.  It also seems to be faster than adding after quilting the quilt.  The white fabric on the back was also used for the binding.  I love how the white binding lets the quilt just fade off instead of having an abrupt ending frame.

The backing was two pieces of yardage I already had in the stash.  I was planning on a yellow floral but it was just too much yellow.  

My quilt labels for the last year or so have been simple white squares with a frame using scraps of fabric from the quilt.  This time I decided to get a little wild and crazy and make a cute little heart block.  I've also put together a quilt label making kit.  In my kit is everything I need to make the same size label for every quilt.  Anyone interested in how to make a quilt label kit?  

A Podunk Picnic is ready to be cuddled and loved.  I can't wait to put her on the guest bed later in the week.  So you'll probably see it at least one more time this week.  But for now it's time to just relax and enjoy the snow. Playtime, Let's make a Snowman!

Yes my friends I love snow.  It's so pretty.  Podunk in winter is brown.  Brown grass, brown trees, brown farm fields all around us.  BROWN with gray skies.  The pretty white snow brightens things up a bit and gives me and Mr. Podunk the opportunity to let our inner child come out to play.  Every year we try to make at least one snowman.  I make the bottom ball of snow and he makes he top two balls since they are too heavy for me to lift.  Dried up coneflowers for the eyes, dried gaillardia for the nose and a brick chip for the mouth.  Mr. Podunk made the arms and I added the accessories.  It was Mr. Podunk's idea to add the sign. 

The sign was a birthday gift from my best quilting buddy Bev.  I've been a quilter for 30+ years but this blog began in 2011.  Wow, it's hard to believe I've been chatting away about quilting for 10 yrs. 

My Word of the Year

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Making Changes to On Podunk Pond Quilt

 One of the great things about quilting is there's more than one way to do just about anything. If you don't like making half square triangles by cutting and sewing two triangles together you have other options.  There's techniques to make two at a time, four at a time, eight at a time and rolls of paper for making oodles at a time.   The unit below is for the inset border triangle of my version of Bonnie Hunters quilt pattern On Ringo Lake.  The pattern calls for these units to be oversized and trimmed down after piecing the quilt.  For me this method doesn't work well.  And I'd really rather not spend anymore time ripping out stitches this week due to trying to do a technique that I know doesn't work well for me.  Let me say before moving on.  Bonnie's pattern is perfect, I'm not in anyway saying she did anything wrong.  I just need to do things the way I know works best for me.

 I decided to use EQ8 cutting instructions.  Bonnie's way of making these units were easier to cut and assemble than this odd shape below.  Since it's an odd shape with uncommon cutting measurements I made a test piece from paper before cutting into my precious fabric.  Using paper to make test pieces can be done with any pattern.  Years ago I would make test blocks from fabric.  If it came out wrong I wasting fabric.  Then one day I had an epiphany....make the block with paper.  It can be tossed in the trash or upcycled for a cute way to take notes or leave messages on the fridge.

For this test piece I used construction paper.  I keep construction paper on hand for when the grandkids come to visit.

The two different colored paper were layered together and cut at the same time.  

It was much easier than it looked.  So far things are looking great.

Now to sew the paper together.

That's right, I'm going through the motions and pretending it's fabric.  

I even pressed the seam to the dark side.  Wouldn't want the quilt police on my tail. Haha!  Tip if you try this method of sewing paper:  You'll need to make your seam allowance just a tad larger.  On my sewing machine I move the needle to the left 2 clicks.

If these triangle units fit on the top then I start cutting the units from fabric.

It doesn't look like it's going to fit.

I was teasing you! It fit perfectly!  Yah!

It's smooth sailing from here.  The process was repeated using fabric.

Layering the fabrics right sides together before cutting makes things a little easier.  I can cut a left and a right odd shape at the same time and they are ready to be sewn together.

All they need is a few little pins.

This unit will fit perfectly with no trimming after it's in the quilt.  I think I'm going to go the extra mile for accuracy sake and trim those tips with this ruler by Fons and Porter

TADA!  No trimming the entire quilt top or in my case no wonky quilt top.  Now I can start piecing the rows with confidence.

What do you do to add a little sunshine into your life?  Is there's something that always makes your heart sing?  For me it's fabric play.  Of course listening to some 70's rock music also puts a pep in my step and a smile on my face.  Word of warning,  put done the rotary cutter if your going to disco dance in the sewing room....that's a story for another day.😂

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Progress with Leaders and Enders

Hello Happy Quilters!  Come on in and join me in doing a little happy dance.  I can't tell you how happy it makes me to have finally mastered the leaders and enders method.  This method of piecing 2 quilts at once has been around for many years but Bonnie Hunter is the one who brought it to life.  She has written 2 books just for this method.  You can find them here in her shop.  

 I was hoping to share a video made by Bonnie about this method but she hasn't made a short video tutorial about leaders and enders.  I know she has shown it in some of her quilt cam videos but those are a hour long and you would need to watch or search the entire video to find the moment when she actually shows the process.  So Bonnie if your reading you might want to make a quick YouTube video about leaders and enders.  Of course YouTube has many videos about this process so I chose one that gave Bonnie the credit she deserves.  The video can be found here.

My current project is On Ringo Lake by Bonnie Hunter (the red and green seen below). A previous post showing the quilt pattern can be found here.   In the picture below you can see I've already cut the green and red pieces off of my blue ender(long arrow at the bottom).  Looking back behind my sewing machine at the short yellow arrow is the other blue. This process of using leaders and enders takes a little bit of prep time but once you get them cut and make a mindful decision to do the process it quickly becomes habit.  I've been trying for years to make this a habit and it has finally worked.  At first it seemed to slow me down but somewhere in day 2 and 3 the process became so much of a habit I didn't even notice and it actually seems now to make the piecing process faster for my main red and green quilt.

I'm flying through the finicky little units 20 at a time as I binge watch "The Affair" on Showtime.  It's a good series.  Word of warning, there's a ton of S-E-X scenes and full nudity of both sexes. I know the title and the channel should have tipped me off about the almost porn-ish parts of the series.  I guess I'm a little old fashion and think a lot could have been left to our imagination.  Thank goodness for fast forward.

Anyway back to quilting.  Just a few more red and green units and I'll be ready to start the next clue.  Crossing my fingers for a quilt top finish by next Monday.

I bought a new dog toy call Kong Rewards Ball.  Mr. Podunk says it's the best money I've spent on her in two years.  It keeps her occupied for quite awhile.   Purchased at Meijer but can be found on Amazon here.  I get nothing for you clicking, just a happy customer sharing ideas. 

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~ Bonnie Hunter 2019 Mystery ~ Frolic ~

Autumn is the best time of year.  I love the cooler temperatures, the warm colors in nature and the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt.  This year the mystery quilt is called Frolic.  The clues for the quilt are FREE while the quilt along is in progress. So be sure to save the free PDF's to your computer each week.  Yes! each week.  That's why I like this mystery quilt.  It moves along at a much faster pace than most.  Once a month quilt alongs are a quilt killer in my world.  I lose interest.

Bonnie's quilt along (in my opinion) has the largest following of quilters.  Have you seen her Facebook Group of quilters?  If not you really need to join, if nothing else just so you can look at beautiful quilts everyday of the year. You can join the Quiltville Open Studio here.  Word of warning, you will need to answer a few questions to get in the group.  If you don't know the answer just Google the question. 

From now until around February the group is almost all about the mystery quilt.  No two quilts are the same.  Bonnie is the master of teaching quilters to quilt from their scraps.  Of course not everyone has a huge stash of scraps so it's totally fine to purchase fat quarters or yardage.  Many of Bonnie's followers are new quilters wanting to learn new techniques.  The mystery quilt is just as beautiful in the 4 or 5 colors done in yardage.

I've completed 2 Bonnie Mystery Quilts.  The first one I made was En Provence. You can purchase the pattern here.  The quilt below is Bonnie's Hunters quilt.

This one is mine and is my favorite.  I changed the colors to my happy and brights.

So many of my Lakehouse DryGoods prints.  

Then last years mystery called Good Fortune.  Bonnie's quilt below.  The pattern can be purchased here.

But you know me, I can't make a quilt as written.  My instinct is to make it my own even if that is only color change.  Mr. Podunk loves a new quilt every so often.  This is his colors that he calls "more manly".

Here's a quick run down of how the mystery quilt happens every year.  

1.  End of October Bonnie shares the colors and the fabric requirements.  This years intro post can be found here.

2.  Black Friday is the first cutting an piecing clue.

3.  New clue every week until late December or early January.

That's it! Short and sweet and to the point.  Of course there's rules and suggestions but she has laid all that out in the link above in #1.

Now it's time to do some fabric pulling and petting. My oldest and least used scraps are in these bins.  Honestly I don't think I've looked in these since the last Bonnie mystery.  I have added a few scraps to them over the year.  A quick look in these and YUK.  

 

Let's change things up a bit and look through my favorite fabric cabinet.

Here's my color plan.  It's really close to Bonnie's.  You'll need to hop over to her blog to see her plan.

The top shelf takes care of 3 colors. 

The blues are already together as well!  This has been the easiest mystery fabric pull to date.

And should I need more.  Well there's plenty of fun prints hiding out in these bundles.  That's that, all done.  It didn't require much work but I think I still deserve a piece of chocolate for mental effort.

#quiltvillemysteryquilt #frolicmysteryquilt #mysteryquilt #bonniehunterquilt

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