Finish: Foothills Mystery

I'm linking up with the Thank Goodness it's Finally Finished link party which is being hosted this week by Janet at Simply Pieced.

  I wish I could remember when I first came across Cheryl and her blog Meadow Mist Designs, but all I know is that I found her before she started her Foothills Mystery Quilt last year. If you are not familiar with a mystery quilt, it is essentially a quilt whose finish is kept secret and has been expertly broken down into smaller steps that once put together create the predetermined design. Cheryl created this mystery to share with her guild, but decided to let her blog followers in on the fun. Each month a different step was provided which meant to me that I only had a small amount of work to do on this project before I could set it aside. I guess it made me realize it is possible to take a project just a little at a time and not all projects have to be completed instantly. 

My fabric pull for the project, which you can read about in an earlier blog post here.

 You may have noticed the colorful graph paper design that is hanging out with this pile of fabric, and I have to tell you that if you ever do a mystery quilt this is not a part of it! I made the process way more difficult than it should be. In the first step of the quilt, Cheryl broke down the fabric requirements for each of three different fabric groups. This is where I went completely overboard, probably trying to solve the mystery prematurely. I got out the graph paper to lay out the ratio of the three different fabric groups. From the blob of three colors on the left hand side of the photo below, you can see that there is more grey (3 yards total) than the other colors and much less orange/wasabi (5/8 yard) than the other colors. I wanted to see what this ratio might look like if it were randomly arranged in a quilt top. The left hand blob in the picture below shows one yard is 12 squares of the graph paper. The other rectangles are the same amount color, as squares or half squares to equal the yardage outlined! What?! Long story short, my brain doesn't know how to enjoy a leisurely mystery quilt along and has to complicate everything it comes across!

My fit of crazy trying to solve the mystery, instead of just enjoying it like a summer read.

 Cheryl was so kind to work with and she offered me some hints at this point in the mystery that allowed the wheels in my head to slow down just a bit. Month by month the quilt parts began to take shape. We made half square triangles (HST), square within a square blocks, hour glass blocks, and diamonds. There were several parts to the puzzle, but we still didn't know how they would all go together. During the month of the HSTs, I had to find an easy way to mass produce them, there were over 100 of them. You can read about my HST quilt hack in an earlier post.

This pile of triangles was actually fun to make after I made some modifications to my machine!

 This quilt was my second long arm quilting experience on Louise, my TinLizzie machine. I played with free-motion, pebbles and a little swirly design, all were hand guided.

Louise making pebbles until the cows come home!

 I took the photos below before this quilt was given as a thank you to the officiant of my marriage to my fantastic husband, and her husband who prepared all of the food for our intimate ceremony. 

I may have to change my blog to quilting among the pines! Pine trees seem to be taking over the orange groves.

A closer look at the pebbles.

 I used two different threads on this quilt, one an Aurifil in grey, and the other a verigated Superior Threads King Tut. The design that was created on the back of the quilt was an unexpected surprise that delighted both the recipients of the quilt and myself.

The secondary design that becomes apparent on the back of the quilt.

The Foothills Mystery has been solved. Stop back among the pines groves to see my progress on Cheryl's latest mystery the Midnight Mystery quilt along. Have you ever participated in a mystery quilt along? What have been your experiences?

Mystery Quilt and Half Square Triangle Hacks

My new blog friend Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs is hosting a mystery quilt along for her Foothills Mystery Quilt. I had never heard of a mystery quilt before I stumbled across Cheryl's blog. I love mysteries and love quilts so I thought this would be a great combination. So far I have learned that in a mystery quilt game the quilt design is broken down into steps to make various pieces of the final design. The final quilt is a surprise that comes together with the final steps of the game. The First step of the Foothills Mystery Quilt was selecting fabric. You can read about my choices here, and if you would like to join, there is still time, just check out Cheryl's blog. Participants cut all of the required pieces in the Second step. Now we are working on the Third Step: 144 half square triangle (HST) units. 

I created several HSTs for a recent quilt top design of my own and I used Cheryl's prescribed method, where you place two squares right side together and draw a line from point to point diagonally across the square and then sew 1/4" on each side of the drawn line. It's a fine method and worked very well for me, follow the link to see. 

Cardboard and tape make a great HST guide for my machine.

I expanded on an idea I borrowed from My Quilt Infatuation while constructing blocks for my WERQ Bee partner where you use tape to help guide squares so that you would not need to draw a line on each one. You place a piece of tape on your sewing machine so that the edge of the tape is 1/4" away from the needle. Then you just line up the points of the square with the tape and sew without having to draw the line!

This would have worked perfectly for me, except the surface of my machine was too small for the 4" square that we are sewing in the mystery quilt. Using some cardboard from a granola bar box and some masking tape I fashioned an extension to my machine. 

The extension attached to my machine base.

The points are all lined up.

If you line up the bottom and top points with the edge of the tape you can sew 1/4" from the center without having to make a mark. I added some triangle markers for the side corners, not that they were necessary, but because they helped speed up the process of lining up the squares just right. I'm sure this is not new, and there probably is a device available that does this same thing. I felt like MacGyver though, hacking into a better, faster, more efficient way of making all of these HSTs.

Chain stitching was a breeze, and guiding the fabric along the tape edge was a cinch.

Just guide them through.

The resulting pile of sewn HST!

Now that they were all sewn, I knew I would have to cut them and press them. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the cutting of them. I started cutting them though, one at a time as I have done before. Then MacGyver kicked in again. There was no reason to cut them only one at a time. 

Lined up on the 5" mark. 

I lined up the stitching line with one of the lines on my cutting board and overlapped the squares as shown. I was careful to make sure the lines all matched from top to bottom.

Use the blurry 1/4" mark on the ruler to line up with a stitching line and slice with the rotary cutter.

Again, I'm sure this is nothing new, but to me it was revolutionary and made cutting those HSTs in half much faster than I had ever imagined. I have to say I am loving this Mystery Game. I have gotten to try some new ideas, and I love that I am able to play with the blocks and imagine endless possibilities because I don't know what the end result will be. It's quite exhilarating!