Allietare Mystery, Clue 1

Every year, Bonnie Hunter (Quiltville.com) writes a pattern and offers it as a mystery quilt-a-long on her blog. I have made five of her quilts from four of her patterns so far:

One Double Delight,

I kept this one. I like purple and yellow!

Dancing Butterflies Quilt - Main Block 1 of 12

In this project, there are three blocks in each set. A set of two smaller ones paired up with one large one that has the dancing butterfly on it.

Here is the first butterfly block.

And the back of it.

The pattern called for Ocean Waves to be stitched in the wings and border. When I started, I naturally gravitated towards Paisley in the wings. After one was nearly done, I realized that I did the stitching opposite of what the pattern called for but was quite happy with the way it turned out.

Stitching in the wings is slow going since there is fusible web in there. I could only sew backwards for one or two stitches before the thread began to shred. Once I adjusted for that, it went well.

In the words of Bob Ross, this block wound up being a "happy accident." The bobbin side reveals brown thread for the butterfly. That was on purpose!

Ocean Waves is a beautiful design that wound up mimicking the currents of the wind.

The bobbin has a soft white thread so it separates the butterfly from the sky.

I pondered over what color to use for the blue border. This purpley-pink seemed to fit the bill quite nicely. How can you not love the Paisley design?

In the bobbin, I chose a purpley-blue for this section. It's interesting to see various colors of thread on the back.

The next thing to do is to connect all three blocks together to make one complete unit. Look for the next post about what fabric I chose to join these blocks.

Dazzle Burst - Clue 4

Guess what? We don't have to do any cutting this week! We're taking what we have and working with that!

But first, let's review.

In the Introduction, we discussed colors and shades that would work for our Mystery project.

In Clue 1, we made 168 2-1/2" squares with our medium shade of the cool color.

In Clue 2, we made 84 4-1/2" half-square triangles with our dark shades of both warm and cool colors.

In Clue 3, we made 168 2-1/2" half-square triangles in the medium shades of both the warm and cool colors.

That is where we left off last. How are you doing with the clues? Are you keeping up? Good! Let's move onto Clue 4!

This week, we are going to only work with the 2-1/2" pieces. Take all of the squares and half-square triangles and get them set up like this. Put the right square on top of the left half-square triangle (right sides together) for sewing along the right edge of the stacked pieces.

Sew up the pairs; you can chain piece them until they are all done. When you open them, they will look like this.

Press the seams towards the darker color. In my case, it is towards the blue square.

Now take all of your sets and match them up like this. We will be sewing that center seam closed.

I put the upper set on top of the lower set. The top edge is the one that will need to be sewn.

You want to make sure the center seams are matched up so the center points come out next to each other when they get sewn. When you put the seams next to each other, you can feel them butt up against each other. If you fold the top set back, you will be able to tell if they are lined up or not. These look perfect! You can pop a pin at that seam if you want.

When I take my sets to the machine, I will sew them all the same way - from this yellow point...

...all the way down to the bottom of the blue square.

Here is what the blocks will look like when they are sewn. Pretty! Almost like a butterfly!

When they are pressed, the best way to stop the bulk in the center is to "spin" the seams around so it looks like this.

I noticed that my edges were a little wavy so I trimmed the excess off. These blocks are going to finish at 4-1/2" square so I lined up the center vertical seam on the 2-1/4" line on my ruler for each side that was trimmed.

There it is! All done! Keep sewing these until all of your 2-1/2" pieces are all gone!

You should have 84 of these blocks when you are done!

If you want a visual of this process, I made a video for this clue. You can find it in the Mystery Projects tab on the top of this page!

I hope that you are inspired enough to keep going with the mystery! Please give me your comments below, links to your blog, or pictures on my Facebook page, Pamelyn's Postings, anytime! The mystery will be available for a long time so start it up anytime you want!

Bargello Blue Weave

This one's a wrap!