The Process

Mystery Quilts Anonymous

Many of you have asked how I go about designing and then making my quilts into mysteries. This is a very good question and I am going to try my best to answer. The first line of design is usually on my phone or iPad. I have a couple of different apps that I use. You can find several out there on your app store. I play a lot with these apps, they make it easy to play with colour and placement. Sometimes, the designs stop here because it was a bad idea or I can't get the colours to play well. But there are times when I can sit and play for hours just to delete the entire project and start over!

These are pics of a design that never really was right, so it got deleted. Playing with shapes and colour didn't help much in my opinion. I did however, do a complete redesign and make something very cool for us to make in the future. This version is just too "boxy" for me. The left one is WAY too busy while the right is to "sterile". Maybe I am just too picky and critical of my work, but these versions were added to the "delete" pile, never to be resurrected!

From this point, the point where I decide I am happy with the geometry, I then play with colour placement. This is fun and easy in the apps. I find playing with colour, quite fun and engrossing. I can't get enough of it. This is the time where I bounce the ideas off a good friend and fellow quilter. She is honest with me and we "tweak" the design in greater detail.

Then comes EQ8, the software on my computer. I "draw" the quilt on virtual graph paper and play with layout and borders. For me, this is the final step before I sew. I have made every quilt we have on Mystery Quilts Anonymous group FB page, as well as many more that didn't make the cut even after all this process! This is a bit more pricey than the iPad apps, but invaluable for me when it comes to calculations and yardages, the app does the calculations for me, usually the yardages are correct to high. This is where I change the design, if I have to, for the different sizes.

My next step is to separate the units into steps, I usually do the HSTs first followed by the rest of the units. I know we don't like HSTs as much as other units, so I try to get them out of the way early. Then... well I better keep it a secret or you will know everything and can figure out the quilt before the end! Then, I sew and take pics while I write the clues. I guess that's why I say in every one that I am really excited about it...it has been on the design board and cutting table for weeks by then.

Guess I will stop being such a windbag and sign off for today. I have to get ready for the church ladies retreat. Gone for the weekend with NO sewing machine... how will I survive??

Addicted to mysteries,

Deb