Making Celtic Solstice: Final Reveal

Bonnie surprised us by publishing the final clue of Celtic Solstice on New Year's Day!  It was definitely fun to see the final design and how all our units played together, but at the same time it was a sad day, knowing that we were done playing until next year.  Be that as it may, I got right to work on assembling my quilt.

First, we put together these blocks:

Next, we put together these blocks:

The blocks are set together so they alternate:

What a fantastic secondary design they create once they are put together!  I nearly fell over when I saw Bonnie's quilt all finished.  Of course, I had to lay out a few rows to see how the design would look in my colors:

Squeeeee!  Oh wow, I'm really loving this!

It took me 2 days to get the blocks assembled and the rows sewn together.  There I had to let this project sit while I got some work done on a project with a deadline.  But today was my play day, the day I save for MY projects, so I buckled down and finished my top:

Wowsa!  I really like the way this quilt has turned out!  This is as far as Bonnie's pattern took us.  However, I do have a plan to make the quilt bigger by adding a row of chevrons along the top and bottom, and then adding yet another border all the way around.

I may still do this, if I can find the right print for that outer most border.  I want to bring out more of the grey that is in the quilt, so if I can find a suitable print in grey with maybe some red and blue in it, that would be perfect.  I'm also rethinking the chevrons, I may instead make pinwheels or maybe 4-patches.  Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

Making Celtic Solstice: Part 5

I can hardly believe we've finished Clue #5 of Bonnie's Celtic Solstice already, which means we've been working on this mystery for five weeks now.  How times flies when we're having fun!

This week we were making Split Triangle Units.  I'm making the smaller quilt, which meant that I needed to make 100 units.  Remember those "extra" or "leftover" HST units from Part 3?  They are being used in the making of these units.

I have a funny aside for you though.  When Bonnie said to use the "leftover" HST, somehow I got it in my mind that these were "bonus" HST that you get from trimming.  Oh no!  Did I miss a step?  Did I throw away scraps I should have kept?  Desperately I went back to view Clue #3... where I remembered that we had made those extra HST units and didn't turn them into pinwheels.  Whew!  Disaster averted!  It was definitely time for more coffee because I obviously wasn't completely awake yet LOL.

Here are all my pieces, cut out and laid out and ready to be sewn together... including those extra  HST:

Here's a block all laid out, to test out how the pieces will go together and how the colors will play with each other.  I think I'm going to like this unit!

Look!  All finished!  Yippee!

Of course, my curious engineer's mind has been trying to figure out how these units will go together.  Bonnie said that the small quilt will finish at about 75" x 75".  That could be divided up into 25 blocks set 5x5, with each block measuring 15".  Each block would use a total of 25 Clue Units set 5x5 (each unit finishes at 3", and 3" x 5 = 15").

We have 25 pinwheels from Clue #3, which could each be the center of a block.  We've made 100 Units in both Clue #2 and Clue #5, which can be divided up so each block gets 4 of each.  But my math falls apart when we get to Clue #1 (having made 92 and 96 Units in two colorways) and Clue #4 (having made 120 Units).

So really, this is me just saying that I have no idea how these units are going to be used and how the blocks will turn out.  What will come next week?  Will we make even more units?  Will we begin assembling blocks?  Only time will tell.  :)

Making Celtic Solstice: Part 4

Today Bonnie promised us an easy clue for Celtic Solstice... 4-patches!  When strip pieced, these little units go together super quickly.  Bonnie used orange and green for hers, but my color scheme is different.  I used red in place of orange, and light blue in place of green.

Here are my strips all cut out and ready to go:

I bought yardage in a few different prints in order to make this quilt.  I didn't have much in the way of scraps in the right colors, so this is what I call "planned scrappy"... where I have to buy a little of a few different fabrics to get the feel of a scrappy quilt LOL.

I'm working with 6 reds and 5 light blues at this point (though I used up one of them in this clue, I only have 4 left now).  Since I don't have many prints, I have to do what I can in order to get as many combinations of fabrics as possible, so it looks more scrappy.

To speed up piecing, I paired up all the strips of one blue and all the strips of one red together, and sewed them together.  Before pressing, I folded them in half (using the shorter of the two strips to measure this) and placed my ruler on top of the fold:

Then I used the heel of my hand to press down on the ruler, making a crease in the fabric:

Once the fabrics were creased, I removed the ruler and laid the strips flat.  Do you see the creases?

I lined up the creases of about 3 strip sets along one line on my cutting mat, then cut each strip in half along that crease.  This gave me twice as many strip sets to mix and match, which allowed me to get a greater variety of fabric combinations for my 4-patch units.

If you're behind on the clues, don't despair.  This clue really does go together quickly so it won't take much to get caught up.  Happy sewing!

Making Celtic Solstice: Part 3

Today Bonnie posted Clue 3 of her mystery, Celtic Solstice.  By Bonnie's standards, this was an easy clue...  For the small quilt we need to make "only" 200 HST (half-square triangle) units.  Half were turned into pinwheels while the other half are left as is, for use later in the process.

First, I had to cut out 200 pieces in each of my two colors.  Bonnie's pattern called for yellow and orange, but I'm using a different color scheme.  In place of yellow I'm using grey, and in place of orange I'm using red.  Here are my pieces, cut out and waiting to be sewn together:

I used the top rows of red and grey for the pinwheels, and the bottom rows of red and grey for the standalone HST units.

Here are the HST units made from the top rows, lined up and ready to be sewn into pinwheels.  Each column will combine into 5 pinwheels.

I don't have a ton of variety in greys at this point, I used up all the smaller scraps in the last Clue.  I've got yardage in 5 grey prints to work with from now on.

And here you go, all the pinwheels and other HST units, finished!

It's a strange feeling, to be done with a clue so quickly.  I guess this means I should work on my other projects while waiting for next Friday LOL.

Making Celtic Solstice: Part 2

Clue 2 of Celtic Solstice was posted:  We're making chevrons!  My color scheme is different from Bonnie's, I used light blue in place of her green, and grey in place of her yellow.  (You can see my entire color scheme earlier on my blog if you're interested.)

My fabrics, cut and ready to be sewn:

Do you notice that grey with the black texture in front of the right-most pile of grey squares?  I bought that specifically to use with Bonnie's last mystery, Easy Street. See below:

It's a good grey print, very versatile for a lot of different projects.  Since I have a lot left over, I thought it would be appropriate to use it in this mystery as well.  It fits right in with my color scheme!

Here you go, my chevrons all sewn up and ready to be put in their place in the quilt:

I am really liking this color scheme, the light blue with the grey.  I may have to plan another quilt in this color scheme, I like it so much.  At this rate, my list of "to do" quilts will never end LOL!

Making Celtic Solstice: Part 1

It's finally time to play!  Yippee!

First of all, I want to give a big THANK YOU to Bonnie Hunter for providing these fun mystery quilts every year, in addition to all the fantastic free patterns she has on her website.  She gives so much of herself to the quilting community, and I am very thankful for it and the way she draws together quilters from all over the world to share in this hobby we all love so much.  :)

OK, back to our regularly scheduled program...

After nearly a month of (not quite) patient waiting, Bonnie posted Part 1 of the Celtic Solstice Mystery.  I'm making the smaller version of this quilt... and you have to remember that "small" is all relative when it comes to Bonnie's quilts LOL.  The small one will finish at 75" x 75", which can either be left as is or easily be expanded with borders to make a good size Queen quilt.

So, the first step was to make a total of 188 units using the Tri-Recs rulers.  Here you see I have all my pieces cut out, using red instead of her orange:

And after two days I finally got them all sewn!

Yippee!  I'm so glad I got these units finished, and I eagerly look forward to Part 2, which will be out later this week.

So, what will keep me busy in the mean time?  Plenty!  Errands to run and monthly financials to do on Monday, new tires on the car on Tuesday, possibly Jury Duty on Thursday, and Christmas projects to fill in the gaps between the other obligations.  Speaking of which, it's time to get off the computer and get back to those Christmas projects.  :)

Happy sewing, everyone!

Making Celtic Solstice: Intro

Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery is about to begin!  On October 23rd, she posted the Intro to the mystery including her color choices: Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue.  You can see the color cards she picked here:

Bonnie's Color Cards

I'm not really that keen on her colors this year, unlike last year's quilt with amethyst, lime green, teal, and white/black.  So I've decided to go a different direction with my colors.  And for inspiration, being a car enthusiast as well as a quilter, I decided to take my color cues from BMW's Motorsport division.  Yes, I chose the "M" colors:

I think this color combination is very handsome, don't you?  Here's how I'm going to arrange my colors in relation to Bonnie's colors...

I'll use Dark Blue where Bonnie currently has her blues.

I'll use Light Blue where Bonnie will use green.

I'll use Red where Bonnie will use orange.

And I'll use Grey where Bonnie will use yellow.

I will still use white or very light cream neutrals, just as Bonnie will be with her color scheme.  But I want to keep this quilt crisp so I'll try to go through my whites before I touch any of my creams.

So, what about you?  Are you going to play along?  What colors will you use?  Which size will you make?  Bonnie will be providing directions for two sizes this time... Big and Bigger LOL.  I'm going to do the smaller of the two, since I've made several king size quilts in the last year I've decided I don't like making them that big.  :)

Until next time....