OK! My first Bonnie Hunter mystery--On Ringo Lake! Nope, I haven't finished yet, and the reveal happened weeks ago, but that's how I quilt--s-l-o-w-l-y. It has been a fun process though, and I have learned how to achieve better accuracy in piecing with Bonnie's tips. Now, I watch where I place the ruler. There's another great tip from her--I think I first heard it in a Quilt Cam video--but I was reminded again in this clue.
I'm not confident in my color choices, but I'm listening again to Bonnie and choosing fabrics in a lot of different ranges. I began with my scraps, which is what initially brought me into trying this quilt. I had several aqua/turquoise fabrics that I wanted to use, as well as several pieces of melon/salmon fabric that needed to be gone from my stash. There were also chocolate brown fabrics to use. When I realized how much of the fabric I had, I decided to jump in. Since then, I have bought several fat quarters of all three colors to complete each clue--well, to work toward completing each clue.
Never before have I cut fabric for an entire quilt without making blocks along the way to see whether I liked the block enough to pursue a finish. What I have learned is that there are advantages and disadvantages to cutting all the pieces first. An advantage is, I think, that I will save time when I begin to assemble the blocks. They will be cut, and I can sit and sew. Another advantage with this mystery is that I have been able to see alternative arrangements in Bonnie's link, so if I like an alternative better, I can piece my block like the alternative. A disadvantage is that if I hadn't liked the final quilt, I would have cut up a lot of fabric just to assemble a quilt fail. Fortunately, that isn't the case, and I might add that doing a mystery quilt involves taking that risk.
Clues 1 and 2 complete and Clue 3 started
The 99K with a string of Clue 3 pieces
Since these pictures, I've made more progress with ORL, but it will be awhile before I finish. Can't wait to see how the completed quilt looks--
