Mystery Has A Name!

After spending the weekend in SE Virginia where the cotton harvesting is in full swing....after passing acres and acres of glorious cotton in the field, after following trucks loaded with cotton bales to the gills...and watching fluffs of cotton bolls flying off the backs of the trucks on their way to the cotton gin, lining the edges of the roads in tufts of white...this quilt has a name!

Are you ready for:

Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll?? :cD

Where would we be without our COTTON!?



Yardages and prerequisites and other info will be posted on or around Nov 1....That will give everyone almost 3 weeks to get their fabrics together.

There are many scrappy avenues to take on this journey...I've got only ONE common fabric tying it together and I'll show you what that one is...

My colors are brown, red, raspberry (or double) pink, green, and neutrals. As with any other mystery, the laws of substitution apply. If you don't like any of the other colors, pick a scheme that you like, substituting one or more of my colors for yours. But think about value, and keep the same number of colors (4) plus background (1)...mine are the neutrals. So, if you are doing something patriotic, you can't just do red/white/blue. It's not enough. You'd have to do red/neutrals/lightblue/navy/gold if you want something like that to work.

Remember....that mysteries are not a race, and if there is a step you don't understand you can wait it out a step or two to see where that direction leads and then make some decisions as to your own fabric choices, etc.

The fun of a mystery is not knowing where the project is going to end up. Just go with it! Don't stay focused on the FINISH, but enjoy every bit along the way.

I do quilts with lots of small pieces. This one is no different. That said, I know there are those who have done "mystery in a day" kind of things, with big clunky 12" 9 patches at the end of the day that ended up as a table topper and weren't happy about it! You will have a quilt you can be proud of when you are done.

I make big quilts. This one is about Queen sized, so smaller than last year's mystery! I am the shortest one in my family at 5'9". My hubby and my sons are 6' 3" and over! I don't have a lot of use or space for wall hangings and lap quilts, so if you want a smaller project, just wait it out until all is revealed and then you can decide what to do. If you want, you can make HALF the number of each unit required, and then decide how you are going to put them together, and see if you need to make any more of anything if you need to.

I will be posting the links here on my blog with the links to the website. Links will also be sent to the Quiltville friend page on facebook, and the quiltville@yahoogroups notification-only list, as well as the very busy very chatty quiltvillechat@yahoogroups.com email list.

How many steps? Not sure. I'm still writing/finishing, and it depends on how long I think each step is going to take you to do. I'm thinking a couple of clues a week which should take us all the way through the holiday season. This is not a one day mystery, nor a week long mystery. You are meant to take the steps as you complete them. If it takes you longer than someone else, that's fine..

And just like in mysteries past...there WILL be some people who have the time to complete each step in record time! They will be posting their progress on their blogs, and I will be posting the links to the next steps on my blog, with photos, so don't go looking if you don't want to know what the next step is. This is going to require discipline on *your* part, not on the part of those doing the posting.....got it? :c)

I'll do what I can to answer personal questions, but it is very difficult to have people send me their fabric choices and ask if I think they will work or not and for me to explain why without revealing the mystery....If you keep your fabric choices close to what I put up, you won't need to!

This mystery will be for the *next* book down the road (book #4 in 2012) and the pattern will be pulled from the website before publishing as with Carolina Christmas.

I've had fun digging into my scraps and FQs with this one.....I just know you are going to love it...The first clue will be posted November 19th!