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.