A Mystery Revealed

I recently became fascinated with mystery quilts. For those of you not familiar with them, you are given basic instructions one step at a time, and you must complete each step without knowing what comes next. This puts me outside my comfort zone, because coordinating fabrics with a "predetermined" pattern and envisioning what they'll look like once they're cut into smaller pieces is the hardest part of quilt-making for me. So, selecting fabrics without knowing where they'll end up in the quilt stretches me like you just don't know.

I've been following a Mystery Quilt over at the Happy Patch blog, and I thought I would share my experience here with you. First, I was to select fabrics and cut them into 2-1/2 inch strips. I'm on a mission to use up some of my "stash" which just never seems to reduce no matter how many projects I do. (I'll bet there are some of you reading this that know JUST what I'm talking about!) I chose a set of fat quarters I bought online at Keepsake Quilting, plus a dark and light coordinating (I hoped) fabric and cut the required number of strips.

Step one was to divide up and sew the strips from the FQs into sets of four; then cut them into smaller sections.  Here are my completed sets. I was told at the beginning of the mystery that the light coordinate would be border... and I guessed that the dark coordinate would be sashings. 

The next step was to add the sashings to the strip sets, and here I am chain piecing all those sets (there are 49 of them) to the sashings.  I tend to have a problem keeping a 1/4-inch seam allowance, so I stacked several layers of painters tape together and stuck them down to form a ridge to keep my fabric up against as I stitched. It does make for changing the bobbin a little tedious, but worked like a charm to keep that 1/4-inch seam consistent.

 Here's that long chain of blocks lined up to the ironing board ready to be pressed and cut apart.

And here are the pressed blocks waiting for the next step...

I am sooooo anxious to see how they will be sewn together. I even tried laying them out in different arrangements.... just couldn't figure out how this puzzle was going to go together.

The next step was sewing the blocks into rows, then sewing the rows together.  First was to lay out the top and bottom rows and stitch those together.... done.... laid aside.  Then layout the inner rows and stitch those together... done... laid all out on the floor to see how they'd look together... picked up top two rows... stitched together.... 

OOPS!  I stitched the top two rows together along the WRONG sides. 

That lavender strip is supposed to be on the TOP edge.

I have become very proficient with my seam ripper!

But, alas...

all the rows stitched together.

The quilt top is about 65 inches square at this point.

I decided I preferred to have it a bit larger and had just enough of the dark coordinate to do 5-inch borders on the sides and 6-inch borders on the top and bottom.  

And now it's time for a trip to the fabric store (oh darn) to choose a backing. 

Sometimes, depending on the pattern and variety of fabrics I use, I like to complete the quilt tops - then take them to the fabric store with me to choose backing fabric. It's easier for me to get the overall 

look I desire...

Thanks for the Mystery challenge, Pat!