En Provence: Purple Progress

It's another week of progress on Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, En Provence, and we are hitting purple! Here  at the Quiltville link-up is where you go to see what others are up to. Not since making the quilt pictured above have I made such demands of my purple stash... and that was Christmas of 2012, for Quarta. She still has it on her bed, and Tertia still has Jack's Chain. That was back when Easy Street was the mystery quilt.

I love purple, but I don't use it that often. I found some lavender that I'd dried and laid the bunches out to show you that it really does come in all shades, and those are just the bushes I am growing in my yard. At first I decided to be systematic and cut at least one strip from all my purples.

Here's the lavender, all harvested and put into a spice jar. I'll use it occasionally in cooking, or in tea. I love the smell of it in sachets too, or just to rub between my fingers.

I decided to cut lengths suitable for 4 or 5 sets. Then I could match them up somewhat randomly and have a wide variety of 4-patches.

I underestimated the amount of strip cutting I would need to do. I think I should always cut three times as much as I think I need, because the first batch only covered about a third of the units I needed to make. That's why I didn't post this on Monday; I got sidetracked into the fun of making more purple patches. I'm still not done, but it's fun and I'm using up fabric. Here's one of the patterns I could make with the units I have so far:

The camera must have a hard time getting the color right under artificial lighting. This looks too blueish. I'm excited to see where this mystery takes me! I need to go back and cut a bunch more strips, and maybe organize my scraps before the next clue comes out. Happy sewing!