Good Fortune Clue 5

Yes, 5! I have looked at 6, and I've even cut a few strings, while straightening edges for the clue 5 pieces. However Christmas week is always extra busy (and I know I'm not the only one) so I haven't got any further with this winter's Quiltville Mystery Quilt, "Good Fortune" than making some of last week's pieces. I also made some more of clue 2 as leaders and enders in clue 5. Perhaps that's an advantage of being behind!

15 pieces for clue 5; where's the one that got away?

As I was making these in pairs, one right- and one left-facing, I was very surprised to have one large blue triangle left over. Where did the other pair of triangles get to, I wonder! I'm not about to move the furniture to look for it now, so that's all of clue 5 for the moment.

As to clue 6, I'm happy that Bonnie gave the option to make the pieces from strings as I'm very low on neutral fabric, but I do have a bag dedicated to the off- cuts from straightening fabric before I start cutting for regular patchwork. I should be able to fill at least one telephone-book page from there, I hope before Friday.

I'm linking to:

So click on the button to see how other's have made clue 6 pieces.

I wish everyone all the best in 2019, especially

Happy sewing

Marly.

Good Fortune clue 4

24 orange string blocks as specified in clue 4 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, "Good Fortune". Well, actually Bonnie specified more than 24, but I'm just not able to spend so much time on the mystery this year.

24 string blocks

Once I'd cut the strings it didn't take much time, and as I still have plenty of strings there are more rectangles to come.

I'm linking up to the Monday link-up (on Wednesday!) at

and at the weekend to:



 Click on the button to see more quilty happiness.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Good Fortune clue 3

Last Friday Bonnie Hunter posted clue 3 of this year's Quiltville mystery, "Good Fortune". This involved making lots of rectangles with folded corners and their bonus HSTs.

24 "bonus" HSTs

 from:

12 parallelograms

As in the two previous clues I only made a slight fraction of the number given in the pattern.

I found it very time consuming sewing just to the side of the drawn lines on the squares. I tried to sew with the left-hand inside edge of the presser foot just touching the left-hand side of the line. I found myself being mesmerised by the motion of the needle resulting in a wobbly line. Of the first batch I had to unpick some of the stitching as the lines had wobbled too close together.  The next phase is cutting three-eighths of an inch from the line between the lines. That's why not wobbling is so important! (If that is confusing check out Bonnie's instructions in clue 3.)

I see in the link-up that there are bloggers there who have already finished this clue completely. At this rate I wouldn't be finished before the end of the year! It's not a problem, I'll just plod on fitting this in when I can and working on each new clue as it's published each week.

I'm linking to:

Click on the button to join the link-up.

Happy sewing

Marly.

RSC 18 finished top

I've finished my top for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge organised by Angela and Mari. These kind ladies posted one pattern and one colour each month from January to October and a load of quilters round the world made some blocks using the pattern and the colour of the month.

This is also my one monthly goal for December: to move this project on. OMG is a link-up hosted by  Patty at Elm Street Quilts

I made two ten-inch blocks each month and this is the result:

If you read my post last week you may see that I followed the advice of a number of readers and added sashing and cornerstones around the outside. This is it now - no borders - and I shall be quilting it in February during a long-arm course. I don't have a long-arm machine; I don't have the space for a long-arm machine, but have discovered a long-armer who is willing to teach me how to use hers! Unfortunately she is at present changing her business from a physical shop to an online one and moving to other premises. Hence the delay.

A close-up of my favourite fabric in this quilt: bicycles. I'm afraid I don't know the name of the designer.

I'm linking up to:

                

   on Saturday                         on Sunday

Click on the buttons to see more lovely quilty projects.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Good Fortune: Clue 2

This year's Quiltville mystery is "Good Fortune". Clue 2 was published on Friday and can be found here. There is still time to join in if you have time on your hands the coming weeks!

I'm not making all the units but going for a lap quilt at the most. Even for that I need a lot more than forty of these HSTs.

40 HSTs: not there yet!

I plan to make more this coming week, along with more of last week's 4-patches.

I'm linking to

Click on the button to visit there and be amazed 

at the enormous number of HSTs made this weekend.

Happy Sewing

Marly

One Monthly Goal in December: to move my 2018 RSC quilt forward.

Patty at Elm Street Quilts invites us all to link up our goal for each month. Just one project to work on and reach a point in the process, or a finish.

Before I go any further I'd just like to return to my November goal which was a play mat for my twin grandchildren, expected in December.
 

They didn't wait for December but were born on 29 November: Roos and Kick - both old Dutch names. It will be some time before they will be playing in their play pen; for the moment they are staying in hospital; they are so tiny!

This month my goal is not to finish anything, although that would be very satisfying. My goal is to prepare my 2018 Rainbow Scrap Challenge top for quilting and maybe even start quilting.

This year I made the blocks for the "Squared Away" sampler devised by Mari (the patterns) and Angela (the colours). It's a long time since I made a quilt with sashing and cornerstones and didn't intend to include them here. The first two blocks I sewed together just didn't want to play nicely and the points certainly didn't match. Those bulky seams had to be separated! Hence the sashing.

And now ... to border or not to border? What do you think? I'm not a great fan of borders unless for expediency - creating extra width. But somehow the sashing seems to need to be balanced by a border. I find it hard to decide because I don't need the extra width.

Top statistics:

• 10" squares: fabric from stash
• sashing 1" wide.
• backing within the blocks and the sashing fabric: Contempo's "Color Weave" in light grey for Benartex 

I'm linking up to:

  

Click on the buttons to see other quilting progress.

Happy sewing

Marly.