Mystery Quilts Anonymous

  Mystery Quilts Anonymous Have you ever been so busy that you feel you are like one of our fur babies chasing your tail? Just running around in circles and getting nowhere!?!?!? Well, that's been me for the past couple of weeks. I know it is just the time of the year and it will pass as things at church and home quiet down. Ok, enough of a rant... On to more fun things...  I was away at our church's ladies retreat this past weekend and had a bit of free time to design and play with colour. I designed a couple quilts and played with colour on a couple more. I love this part of the process, watching how colour changes the entire look of the quilt. Look at these two border units, just changing ONE colour makes such a big difference. I should have tried this on the app first, but I decided after it was cut and sewn, I liked the lighter unit better! I designed this pictured border with the more medium colour, but decided to try the light one instead, I lo...

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...

Mystery Quilts Anonymous Sometimes my favourite part, sometimes a chore...picking fabrics and colours can be fun and rewarding. I have a pretty good sized stash, but do we ever really have that PERFECT match that we want unless we’ve bought the entire line??  I know there are those who won’t use one manufacturer with a different manufacturer in the same quilt, I truly don’t have that option. Fabric where I live is quite expensive ($35+ per metre) so I have to mix manufacturers all the time. Although, I will only use 100% cotton in my quilts. I will also use flannel and shirting, as long as it’s 100% cotton. I don’t like to mix flannel and quilting cotton as they shrink at different rates.   Here are two examples of a couple of quilts I have on the drawing board. The purples have their design finished and I’m cutting and sewing. I was inspired by the black with the purple dots first, it was easy to match and fabric was on sale that day!!! I hadn’t done the de...

  Mystery Quilts Anonymous I don’t know about you, but the thought of being without my sewing machine for three days makes me a bit anxious. I know heaps of you probably don’t get a lot of time to sew and therefore your time with your machine is precious. I sew all day and not sewing.....I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. I’m worried I may be out of my element. BUT, I will be busy with our church ladies at the retreat, at the BEACH!!! I’ll be relaxing in the sun and swimming in the ocean for a couple days! Getting all the cooking done in advance so I won’t be over a hot stove all day everyday.  I look forward to our Mystery Quilt Retreats in 2020, I have so much fun planned! An exclusive mystery, day trips to local sites, fabric shopping (with a bonus), and so much more. Just telling you about it makes me so excited!  I guess I’ll sign off this short post for now! Just wanted to know what you do when you are machine-less??? I may try to fin...

Mystery Quilts Anonymous I took a wee bit of wall space between a window and a closet in my sewing room to put up some pegboard. This helps me to organise my rotary cutters, rulers, and other tools. I can now see all my rulers, this keeps me inspired to try new things. I love playing with colour and shapes to make something different. I need to practice with my pineapple tools before I share with you. Haven't mastered those yet!  I use all other rulers on my "wall".    This wall was not very expensive and has made my cutting so much easier and faster! I have everything hanging at my finger tips. I love the ease of it all. I love being able to change it up with a new tool or cutter. Plus my wee little warning sign at the bottom.... I love my teeny weenies. Fur babies make sewing fun, especially when they are sitting on your foot that is on the foot pedal! What's your favourite rotary cutting tool? I am excited as we head into 2020 together...

Mystery Quilts Anonymous I don't know about you, but I was on an iron search for a very long time. I went from cheap irons to expensive irons and EVERYTHING in between. My last effort was a Sunbeam and I thought I had finally found my dream iron. That is until the water reservoir cap broke. Come to find out, that is a common problem with them.  I am happy to say, I have purchased a new iron (a couple months ago) and I am in love! I have a Braun TexStyle 7. It is absolutely the best iron ever!     I have a lot of bullet points on my judging list: weight, water capacity, heat plate size, number of steam holes..... I have to say those are only a few! The Braun is amazing with everything...if anything, it gets too hot and tends to melt the wool pressing mat! I had to turn it down two clicks to keep my iron clean and the pressing mat intact. What's your judging list look like? I love my wool pressing mats as well. In the beginning, I was a bit worried...

Mystery Quilts Anonymous Here we are at the end of 2019 and I am so excited to design and share with you in 2020. We have accomplished so much this past year and I am aiming to keep us very busy next year as well. We have our RBR (Row By Row) to carry on with, I have some more small blocks for you. We will be starting a year long BOM (Block of the Month) as well as work on our mysteries along the way. Who would have thought 17 months ago we would be nearly 5,000 strong now. We began with me and a few who followed from QCA and a couple other groups, I was SO ECSTATIC when we hit 50! I am just a normal little lady in New Zealand who loves to design and share with others! We have an amazing group and it has become my obsession, my very happy place to be! In 2020, I will be publishing a book with patterns in it. I will share a few of our favourites and add some that will be exclusive to the book. My goal is 10 patterns. I have been busy with designing and writing for it, AN...