Saturday, November 28, 2015

Mystery Step One

Bonnie Hunter released the first clue of this year's mystery last night just before bed-time. So of course I spent time thinking about the quilt when I should have been asleep.

This year as well as choosing my own colours (here's the post about that), using metric measurements, and only making a quarter of the pieces, I'm making another change; I'm making the individual units larger. Bonnie bases lots of her quilts on 3" pieces, which translates to 7.5cms. That's not a problem, but making pieces that finish half that size (which she often does) involves cutting in quarter centimetre increments, and that doesn't thrill me. So I've decided that where Bonnie uses 3 inches, I will use 8cms. It's not  big difference, but half of 8 is a lot easier to deal with than half of 7.5.

So on to the sewing!

I like to use the Magic 8 method to make my half-square triangle blocks, but I wanted to get lots of variation so I adapted the method. So that I would get two sets of four matching blocks from each "magic 8", instead of eight all the same, here's what I did:
This was my test piece to make sure it would work. I cut a square from the brown fabric (my constant), but rectangles half the size from two neutrals. Here's the result of that test:

That worked well, so I continued on the same way and made a few more:
They went together quickly. And I've made a note of what size I cut them in case I need to make more at the end.

When Bonnie activates the link-up on Monday, I'll add the link here so that you can check out everyone else's mystery bits!
Here's the first link-up.

21 comments:

Art by Rhoda Forbes said...

Love your colors. I just started using the 8 at a time method and absolutely love it. Looking forward to the Allietore! journey with you.

Feathers in my Nest said...

Ooh, Love your colors Vireya! I'm a Easy Angle Gal myself, Ha.

Frances Meredith said...

Colours, sizes, metric units - and I thought I liked to mix it up! Have a great journey!

Bente Antonsen said...

Love your colors. I like the way many change colors, but I find it difficult to make fabric changes when sewing Bonnies mystery. I suppose it is because I am no good at making decissions :)

Unknown said...

Lovely job Vireya!

Saged Crone said...

Love it all! I'm using the magic 8 method myself..and am loving it! Happy Quilting!

Cheryl in Friendsville said...

Looks fantastic!

The Joyful Quilter said...

Such a wide variety of neutrals and I like your substitute for Bonnie's gray!! That is the beginning of a lovely cozy quilt.

Pascale said...

I love your colours and the fact that you changed the size as well as the number of units.
Pascale, UK

Andee said...

Looking forward to seeing it come together with all your changes! Love the color...close to my copper!

Jeanette said...

Congratulations on being #1. I notice others are using similar colours to you, it looks great.

AfterMath Quilting said...

Looks good. Looking forward to seeing your other fabrics.

Terri in BC said...

Thanks for sharing how you made the changes - I love hearing how everyone makes it their own!

~Deb Lindley said...

What a nifty change w/Magic 8 method - may have to give this a try on a future quilt...Thanks for sharing!

Have FUN ;-)
~Deb

gayle said...

Great idea for the magic 8 adaptation! Makes getting a variety a lot easier.
Thanks for sharing your size adjustment. I'd often wondered how complicated it would be to change inches to centimeters in quiltmaking.

Elaine said...

Love to see how you are changing the pattern and I really like your warm brown constant fabric

Connie Kresin Campbell said...

I really like the color you are using instead of grey and it will be fun to see how big your quilt ends up!

Kate said...

I like your color palette for the mystery and your ingenious way of getting more variety into your HSTs.

Marly said...

Nice colour choice. good luck with the next step. You were quick off the mark Monday!

Ivani said...

Yours HTS are looking good, great colours I resist as much as I can to join in...By now I am also making only 50% of the size of the original quilt, Hugs

Patty said...

these look great. I like the fabric for the darker blocks.