Grand Illusion: Clue 5

Clue 5 is here!  Hooray!  And true to Bonnie's word, this one was super easy.  I started working on it at 8:00 am, and finished by 9:30 am.  No, I wasn't racing to get it finished, it just was truly this easy.

You can download the clue from the Quiltville blog until sometime in March 2014 (yes, this is new!), at which point it will be retired so it can be published as a pattern you can purchase.  If you're even thinking of working on this quilt, download the clues and save them... or else you'll have to wait until you can purchase a copy later.

Grand Illusion Mystery

Every Monday after a clue is posted, Bonnie has a Mystery Link-Up where participants can share photos of their progress, like I've done in this blog.  Be sure to check it out and see all the wonderful variations in color and fabric!

Mystery Monday Link-Up, Part 5

We had to make some easy four-patch units for this clue.  Most of them are aqua (blue) and yellow, while a few are a combination of yellow/black/pink (purple).  I've switched my colors up a bit from Bonnie's, with my color choices indicated in parenthesis.

I'm down to only four of my blue prints, and one of them was mostly used up in this clue.  So, to try to get more variety I kept my strip sets short, using the measurement Bonnie suggested.  Here are my strip sets, sewn and ready to be paired:

I was able to get six unique pairing combinations from these strip sets, so I have a bit of variety in my finished four-patch units.

I didn't have extra black, purple, and yellow pieces left over from previous clues, so I had to cut a few of those.  I only cut from two different blacks and two different purples, but that's OK. I don't mind if they aren't as scrappy as the rest of the quilt.  It's my quilt after all, I can choose to do that if I want LOL.

Here are all my finished units for Clue 5:

Here's hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas Day yesterday, and if you celebrate it, that you have a fun Boxing Day today.  May your heart be full of happiness, and may your soul smile... much like my kids were smiling yesterday.  (Yes, I had to sneak in a picture of my girls LOL.)

And may you have wonderful companionship during these holidays.  Our cat Nuggs says "meow", which is kitty for "hello".  :)

Grand Illusion: Clue 4

Bonnie wasn't joking when she said the next clue would be easier.  We used pieces from a previous clue, cut some more pieces, and had to sew only a few more units (in Bonnie terms) to complete this clue.  I surprised even myself and got it done in a day!

You can download the clue from the Quiltville blog until sometime in March 2014 (yes, this is new!), at which point it will be retired so it can be published as a pattern you can purchase.  If you're even thinking of working on this quilt, download the clues and save them... or else you'll have to wait until you can purchase a copy later.
Grand Illusion Mystery

Every Monday after a clue is posted, Bonnie has a Mystery Link-Up where participants can share photos of their progress, like I've done in this blog.  Be sure to check it out and see all the wonderful variations in color and fabric!

Mystery Monday Link-Up, Part 4

This clue started us out with the extra HST that we made in Clue #1.  We had to make as many more HST using white and aqua (though if you recall, I swapped blue for the aqua).  We also had to cut out some black squares and some yellow squares.

Here are all my pieces, ready for sewing to begin.

There are my HST triangles, already paired up and ready to sew.  I have to admit, at the start of this project I was a little annoyed at the idea of pairing up your fabric strips before cutting with the Easy Angle ruler for the HST units.  But now I'm a complete convert!  Yes, there is a little extra work to be done to get the strips lined up sufficiently, and yes you end up cutting only one pair at a time, but once you get these pre-matched units to the sewing machine, you FLY through them.

After flying through sewing the HSTs, I kept on sewing and paired up the blue/purple units from Clue #1 with black or yellow, depending on which block they were destined for.  When I was done with that... I had a whole lot of pressing to do LOL.

It didn't take long to catch up with the pressing and to continue sewing pieces together until all the blocks were finished.  I have all my Broken Dishes #2 finished:

As well as all my Broken Dishes #3:

Woot!  I'm thrilled to have these done!  I recently picked up a commission project, so I allowed myself today to play... and play I did.  Tomorrow I have to go back to working on the commission.  Grand Illusion is my motivation to keep on top of this commission... if I get enough work done on it through the week, then I can take Fridays off to play LOL.

Until next week....

Grand Illusion: Clue 3

I must admit, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Clue #3.  Strip piecing!  Simple units!  Yes, we still had to make a ton of them but strip piecing is so easy and so quick, I didn't mind at all.  :)

You can download the clue from the Quiltville blog until sometime in March 2014 (yes, this is new!), at which point it will be retired so it can be published as a pattern you can purchase.  If you're even thinking of working on this quilt, download the clues and save them... or else you'll have to wait until you can purchase a copy later.

Grand Illusion Mystery

Every Monday after a clue is posted, Bonnie has a Mystery Link-Up where participants can share photos of their progress, like I've done in this blog.  Be sure to check it out and see all the wonderful variations in color and fabric!

Mystery Monday Link-Up, Part 3

Friday happened to be a busy day for me, I was able to download the clue and read it while I ate breakfast but I couldn't do much with it until later in the day.  I did manage to find the time to cut out my strips later in the evening.  I only had four green prints set aside for this mystery but felt that they would be too boring all on their own for this clue LOL.  I dug into my stash and found a few more, not quite in the lime green I had started with but they played nicely together so I added them to the pile.  Here are my strips, cut and ready to be sewn together.

I first paired up a green strip with a white or black strip, until all my strips were sewn together.  Here they are, waiting to be pressed.

I was in the middle of pressing my strips when my iron decided it didn't want to live any more.  It made a popping, crackling kind of noise and then smoke started pouring out of it.  I immediately unplugged it and took it outside.  I couldn't see where the smoke was coming from, so to be safe I hosed it down.  The smoke kept coming out, and if I held it up in front of me, I could see waves of heat rising from the iron... not good.  So I filled a bucket with water and submerged the iron to be certain the fire was put out.

Of course, an iron is needed to finish this clue so I immediately headed out to get a new one.  A girl's got to have her priorities straight LOL!  This is what I came home with. It's lightweight and gets nice and hot.  The only thing I wish is that I could turn off the steam at higher temperatures, but for $30 I can put up with it.

Back to Clue #3!  Once my strip pairs were pressed, I paired up these units until I had enough to cut the pieces needed for the final blocks.  I tried my best to not have duplicate fabrics in each block, for more variety.  Here they are, my finished blocks!

I'm so happy with the way this mystery is turning out so far.  And like all of Bonnie's mysteries, I have no clue how these units will be put together into the final arrangement.. but that's part of the fun.  :)  Now to wait (not so patiently) for Clue #4.

Grand Illusion: Clue 2

Bonnie unveiled Clue #2 yesterday, hooray! 

You can download the clue from the Quiltville blog until sometime around June 2015, at which point it will be retired for inclusion in a future book.  If you're even thinking of working on this quilt, download the clues and save them... or else you'll have to wait until the book comes out.  :)

Grand Illusion Mystery

 Every Monday after a clue is posted, Bonnie has a Mystery Link-Up where participants can share photos of their progress, like I've done in this blog.  Be sure to check it out and see all the wonderful variations in color and fabric!

Mystery Monday Link-Up, Part 2

As soon as I woke up, I ran to my computer to download the clue for myself.  Because I am on the West Coast, my news feed on Facebook was full of photos of units that others to the East of me had made. What fun!  Unfortunately, I had plans to be out in the morning and only had time to make up two test units before I had to leave.

Bonnie gave us three different methods to make this unit.  I tried her template method, my test unit is on the right.  Unfortunately, it came out a little bit too small, by 1/8".  Next I tried the last method she suggested, the sew-and-flip method, and I got a perfectly sized unit... so this is the method I used for the rest of my units.

All my pieces are cut and ready to be sewn!  In order to keep this from being overwhelming, I attacked this in stages.  I would work on 20 units at a time: sew, trim, flip and press.  This made the job seem more manageable and less daunting.

See?  I got all my units sewn in no time!  :)

And look at that pile of trimmings!  I put my rotary cutter next to it so you can see just how large this pile is.  No, I didn't sew them into HSTs, I honestly don't  have the time right now.  I did save them to my crumbs bag, one of these days I would like to make a crumb quilt.

And voila!  All my blocks for Clue #2 are finished!  I'm really liking how my colors are turning out.

At this point, however, I may need to put the mystery aside.  I just had a BIG project dropped in my lap which I will have to focus on as it actually has a deadline LOL.  Or, I might use the mystery as incentive to keep myself motivated on this deadline project so that I can carve out a little time to play.  We will just have to wait and see what happens.  :)

Have fun, everyone!