Weekend Projects & Mystery Thoughts.

I've been filling my weekends with a specific project I work on mostly on weekends.

By the time I make it home in the evening I may have enough energy left for pressing and cutting - and if I wake up early enough in the morning, I might make some pieces and parts towards this project - but mostly it's been relegated to weekends.

This is the Jackknife block found in the Sept/Oct 2020 issue of Quiltmaker Magazine. You can find the link to purchase the issue under the Addicted to Scraps tab at the top of the blog.

I loved this block from the first time I made my samples for the magazine issue - and am working my way through larger hunks of scraps and fat quarters to make each block using two different fabrics.

I have quite a few blocks to go yet before I have the number I'm planning on, but I thought you'd like to see how these beautiful yellows are adding some sunshine to my life right now.

Some of the other colors.

After reading many comments from people who are disappointed in our Grassy Creek reveal - their feeling that I just "dumped it all out there." or those who are less happy with what the quilt looks like - I want to let you in on a couple of things to think about.

This is the SECOND mystery I presented with just a few months between the end of the first, Unity - and Grassy Creek, second. 

I do give these mysteries for free - but there is no guarantee you are going to like the finished result - in your fabrics, or in mine. We all have different preferences to what kinds of things we like to make, the fabrics and colors and styles we like to work in.

I LOVE how Grassy Creek turned out.

This was my vision for the quilt. I knew what it was going to look like when I designed it.  I chose the inspiration for the colors, pulling from my surroundings.

I KNEW this was not going to be for everyone.  And I gotta tell you, if you are unsure about a mystery and you go changing the colors not knowing where they are going to go beforehand, what the design will be, what colors will touch what - it's completely Russian Roulette.  You have no idea what your result will be.

If "I don't like orange and grey" is your stance - it's perfectly okay to sit the mystery out until the reveal and decide if it is something you want to "waste" your time (and fabric) on.

Some mysteries have run longer.  Some have been shorter - Some I have had to push through with rapid fire clues to get them all out there before I flew off to teach somewhere right after New Year's.  Remember that?  I can't release clues while I am on the road - 

So much work goes into doing all of the graphics and photos and writing each clue to be released on Fridays for weeks - for nearly 2 months. 

How many posts and PDF copies have been written and uploaded behind the scenes through this whole process and offered for free? How many late evenings and sleepless nights?

But all mysteries come to a reveal day.

For those who felt I "rushed through" at the end - I didn't. This mystery was only ever going to have 7 parts - we had made ALL of the units with the exception of cutting the corner squares for the Ohio stars and piecing the string rectangles for the border - which I knew people were going to either love or hate and choose different options.

It is the middle of January.  it is time to put the quilt together.  You can only keep a mystery a mystery for so long until it becomes obvious what we are making. It's a mystery, and my reveals are usually big ones, when folks still can't figure out which direction the quilt is heading. That's the fun part of a mystery.

And isn't that why we do it? For the FUN of community and connectedness?

But accusing that I "unloaded it all at once" after the emotional upheaval last week is just not true. It's speculation - and it is wrong.

Yes, last week was hard.  This week is even harder.  My mother-in-law passed away on January 5th. There was no funeral I could travel to in the time of Covid. The small family graveside service was in Idaho this past Monday, January 11th.  Obituary HERE.

Lezetta had been declining with dementia over the years and had been placed in a care facility before my father-in-law passed a few years back. She hasn't known anyone or recognized anyone for years. But it is still so sad.

And yes - she died at age 101 from complications caused by Covid.

So yes, my emotions have been all over the place.

But please don't dump onto me how I dumped the mystery reveal "in a hurry" on to you.  You have absolutely no idea.

The reveal happened right on time - at the right time. It was the happiest thing to happen over those couple of weeks.

My heart is raw - my heart is tired. 

I'll be spending some time loving on these two.

And spend more time today putting the finishing touches on something I hope will bring happiness and creativity back to all of us SOON.

Quiltville Quote of the Day -

If anything describes where I am right now in my journey - this is it!