Grassy Creek Mystery Quilt (Bonnie Hunter)

 This is the 7th Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt I’ve done, I’ve always enjoyed doing them and most of the time I really like them. This year not so much. When I saw the ‘reveal’ in January I just put all my finished parts and pieces in a large ziploc bag and put it away. I just wasn’t interested in finishing it right away like I usually do. Well,  last week I opened that bag and started sewing those pieces together. I’ve finished the 25 blocks and the sashing pieces are ready to sew together. I will change the border. In my opinion, all of the different colors of gray used in this quilt make it look 'muddy'. 

Grassy Creek Mystery  Quilt Blocks

The border was supposed to be string pieced with varying shades of gray. Of the finished quilts I've seen on line, the only ones I liked had used a different color for the gray, or had used only really light grays instead of light, medium and dark grays. I'm far enough along that I'm not going to change what I've already completed. I will be changing the border to a tone on tone light gray, with a small inner border of a bright green. I'm hoping this will help me like it a little bit more! Only time will tell...

While I've been sewing these blocks together I started on an Arkansas Crossroads quilt for a leader and ender project. It's fast, easy and will use up a lot of scraps. It's time to go through all of my scraps and organize again. I try to have boxes of 2 1/2" strips, 3 1/2" squares/strips and 1 1/2" strips. This method works the best for me. 

Scrappy Arkansas Crossroads 

I did just finish my Keyhole/Hole in the Wall Scrappy Quilt. It's just a fun scrappy quilt that's very fast and easy to make. I end up making lots of scrappy quilts, they're probably one of my favorite quilts to make. I quilted it with a variegated thread, did a wavy piano key in the border and just did an overall meander in the center. It's so busy you can't see the quilting anyway.

The feed sack quilt that was loaded on my longarm for 2 months is at it's forever home. Took a long time, but it's done. I just quilted it with a small all over clam shell design.  It needed a good washing and it came out of the dryer beautifully. I would love to know who started sewing all the feed sack strips together and when that was done. My sister Val found the ziploc bag full of these feed/flour sacks at a garage sale already cut in strips and partially sewn together. She knows how I love and collect feed sacks so she bought it for me. It took me a while to decide what to do with them, I didn't want to rip them apart so I needed to figure out what pattern to make with these.   I finally decided to add some strips of Kona Snow and sew the shorter strips into lengths long enough for a quilt. I love how it turned out. 

My 2021 Temperature Quilt is caught up through the end of April. The more days I add the more I love it. 

I've only got 2 more weeks of work left before I retire. I'm getting pretty excited about that, I guess I know I'm ready and it's time.

                                               Happy Quilting!

                                                      Kris

Orange Peel Temperature Quilt

 I decided to start a temperature quilt for 2021 when I saw how low the temperatures were in February.I have a friend who started a Temperature Quilt using little houses and I loved it. It took me a few weeks to figure out the fabric and pattern I would use. A Temperature Quilt and an Orange Peel Quilt were both on my Quilt Bucket list so I finally settled on combining the two. The background squares are 3 1/2” unfinished and represent the day’s low temperature. The orange peel represents the day’s high temperature. The small circles represent the months. I’m also stitching a vein like line on the orange peel with Perle cotton.

   

   I’m finding the daily temperatures from McCook’s local airport. It’s making it personal for me because I’m at the airport in the morning unloading our FedEx plane. I will be retiring in 5 weeks and that’s getting me pretty excited. I had a fat quarter bundle of Robin Picken’s ‘Thatched’ laying around and thought it would be perfect for this quilt. I love the bold bright colors and there were 24 different colors in this bundle.

This is the chart I’m using. I printed it from something I found on Pinterest, and it’s great for keeping track of your temperatures and fabric colors. I have a different color for every 5 degrees. It’s from aquiltingsheep.com

I’m using a permanent marker to write the date on the back of each orange peel so it’s easy to keep track of, and then sew together.

I love  #100 silk thread to appliqué with. It truly makes the stitches disappear. I’m able to purchase this at my local quilt shop.

I’ll keep updating my temperature quilt as I add to it every month. If you’re interested in making a temperature quilt, you’ll see a lot of different ideas on Pinterest. 

   

 Happy Quilting!

Kris