Quiltville Mystery Reveal - And Happy New Year!

Bonam Fortunam omnibus vobis opto! I wish good fortune to you all!

Happy New Year to all stopping by my corner of the internet. It's a very busy week for our family with party planning for our "Last Noel" party on Friday, but I wanted to sneak a few pictures of my quilt progress in here, and it turns out it's the first post of 2019. I resolve to blog more frequently this year than last, how about that?

To see more wonderful examples of this truly lovely quilt, hop on over to Quiltville where the link-up party is going on. And if you love scrappy quilt patterns, and haven't yet done so, get her instructions for this year's Good Fortune mystery while they are still freely available; they will disappear at the end of January. I have participated in every mystery since 2011 and Orca Bay, and this year's, well, I would like to make it again in two or three different color combinations. It's particularly fun when people all over the world are making it at the same time.

I have pieced all the blocks for the central part of the quilt, but haven't started on the pieced borders yet. That will be a challenge for another week. I have not the best lighting in my quilting corner, but playing with the settings on my photo editor might have helped a bit.

 I made two blocks (on the far right) in the recommended colorway, but I am happy with the way I switched up the colors. I was a bit unsure at first, because the spinning star blocks in green and yellow are generally much lighter in value than the string chain blocks in red and blue. I was worried the red/blue would overwhelm the green/yellow. But I love all of those colors, and as the number of blocks grew, I noticed the alternate blocks create a lot of fun diagonal motion in the quilt, which is something I like a lot. I was a little worried that the reds and greens would end up next to each other and it would look too Christmassy, and that didn't happen. One block is patriotic, and one is what I think of as Hobbit colors. There's a really pretty red/white diagonal lattice, and sunshiny whirligigs in between. And I like it in just about every color combination I've seen.

 

My quilts have gotten so much scrappier with every passing year. I don't know if there's such a thing as TOO scrappy, but I will say, there are some fabrics I would like to use up and never see again, and some that I love and wish I had a bunch more of. I think I cleaned out and cleaned up enough fabric this mystery that I could justify a few trips to quilt stores in the coming year. I have been limiting my fabric purchases for a few years now. But a side benefit of Bonnie's mystery this year was that it forced me to work through all of my scrap boxes, and I quickly realized I needed to get them cleaned up and better organized. It's a great feeling! (Although stirring up the dust caused a lot of sneezing).

My "best nine" photos on Instagram last year were all from either On Ringo Lake or Good Fortune. 

 Spock is wishing you good fortune, or as he would say, "Live long and prosper." Also found in this quilt (although not necessarily in this close-up), are Kermit the frog, Curious George, Olivia the pig, Bob and Larry from Veggie Tales, Nancy Drew, Dr. Who, Rey from Star Wars, dinosaurs, traffic cones, maps, bugs, sheep, lots of flowers, some of my mom's old curtains and aprons, my alphabet skirt fabric from the 80's, some vintage sheets, and quite a few bits of recycled shirts. I know there is at least some fabric from the 70's, and probably a few bits from as far back as the 50's from my mom and grandmother.  I tried not to repeat too many fabrics on each block, and that was not hard.

So, thanks to Bonnie Hunter for a great mystery! I hope I can get the whole top together sometime in the next month or so.