Step 6 Bonnies Mystery

Firstly I want to thank everyone for their kind comments on my work in the blog.

I am hoarse shouting at the pups, one of them managed to 'steal' a spool of aurifil thread, by the time I wondered why they were so quiet well the damage was done as you see

which one is guilty ??

I sewed all day and finished step 6. Had a problem with the 16 half triangles the size given in the instructions was too 'neat' I had to do a bit of experimenting to get the right size .

The strip needed to be cut 2 3/4" wide and then with companion angle cut on the 2 3/4" mark.

Works a treat. Im not sure if my blocks were slightly larger or if was an error. But sorted now.

With hindsight I wish I had a stronger contrast between the blue and the green. The Ohio Star doesn't stand out enough for my liking. It will be interesting to see how it will turn out.... I have to admit I put it on the design wall with the pieces that aren't sewn yet... !!! No I'm not showing you lol.

Step 5 Bonnies Mystery

Step 5 done, relatively easy to do using the companion ruler, I've never used it before. Now to wait till the next step.

Meanwhile I have started another mystery found on fabricholics can be done in a day but so far life is taking over at times and im doing leader and ender system to get through it, once Bonnies mystery is done I'll concentrate on the second mystery and i have a dug out some cat fabric, which will make my granddaughter a cute quilt and I have a few ideas on that too... you wil just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile my sweet Poppy got chased by a strange dog that came into the garden, she doesn't go far from the garden tending to amuse herself by teasing Bailey and Sapphire. She managed to escape up a tree and I thought it was going to be a rescue service to get her down. She was up the tree for an hour. This ontop of Bailey swallowing a little plastic tube that got stuck in the roof of his mouth, I thought he was choking and was trying various manouvres to release what I thought was an obstruction in his throat. When he finally let me look down his throat , my hand having already been done and could find nothing , i saw the tube and had a terrible time dislodging it as he was distressing more and more. But out it came and he just collapsed in an exhausted stressed state, with me equally exhausted. Will it stop him ? not ever !!

Bonnies Mystery

I managed eventually to get back to Bonnies mystery, I did my usual thing of getting waylaid in another project. the pictures are here as well, I now have steps 3 and 4 done and am working on step 5.

We had some snow which was kind of novel for us, the dogs loved it, after the shock of the first few steps. It never lies long turns to mush very quick, we tend to get black ice on the roads more than snow.

As I was doing steps 3 and 4 of the mystery I came across some spirrals I did at a workshop in Spain ( yes how cool was that) last year. To be honest I didn't like them , more they weren't my thing. It was fun learning how to do it but I wont ever make any more. couldn't face yet another UFO, I already have more than my quota for a lifetime, so i decided just to make these up very simply.

Everytime I came to the end of a sewing session, I whipped the spirrals through as an ender and now all I have to do is sew the rows together.

A simple border will finish it of.

Fun with Disappearing 9 patch

I really enjoy making 9 patches they are so easy to do, and so versatile. there has been much talk about disappearing 9 patches and there seems to be so many versions. So I thought Id give it a go as well. This version works well with 3 1/2 " strips you cant go much smaller, but you can go as large a size as you want. My second version I used 4" strips and oh boy had I fun with those but first the easy versions.

Again so versatile but for the simple version you will need 3 fabrics accent fabric, a background fabric and a dark fabric. To make a half decent size I cut four strips the width of the fabric of my accent fabric (the orange) into 31/2 " strips, I then cut four strips the width of my fabric in my background fabric (the green) into 31/2 " strips and one strip of my dark (the purple) into 31/2 " strip.

These I then stitched with 1/4" seam allowance

accent, background, accent

background, dark, background

accent, background, accent

Press each set and cut into 31/2" strips.

I generally press to the dark side this will give a nice butt join, where the fabric just locks in, and there is less bulk at the seams

As you see the layout for a regular nine patch.

Join the sections.

Now we chop our 9 patch up.

Line your ruler up with the edge of your accent colour and cut horizontally and vertically through the background and dark fabric. Your centre section should measure 3" so half of that is 11/2 so make cut through the centre.

Chopped up. Now the creative bits start

This is the simple version or idea

You will have to add on sashing on one side and on the top. to do this you need to sew a 13/4 " wide dark strip to 3 1/2 " background strip. press towards the dark.

Then cut at 1 3/4 " wide intervals ( depending on how many block you have for example if your blocks are 7 x 8 you will need to cut 15 pieces)

You get the idea here

Have fun tomorrow I will try the layout on the right with only 2 colours. But first i have to finish these.

Lots of frog stitchin

Heres a photo of my other helper my beautiful poppy, I found her at the cat rescue as a 3 month old kitten.

I bought the frame a Little Grace 11 and the Pfaff grand quilter a year ago and loaded this quilt on it.. I would love to say it was now finished but alas not, Poppy has made it her permanent hammock!!! I think she will be so disgusted if i ever finish it. Im meandering in the white bits just to kill all the white. The fabrics used were 1930 fabrics from a 9 patchw swap with the quilting sisters group. I had enough 9 patches to finish 2 quilts,

I did finish this one and it is now in Australia I was pleased with it but the binding was a pig to do.

The next part of this mystery is a hundred 9 patches, now i can do these in my sleep, dear knows how many i have made over the years!!

MMM but this was different I made around fifty and decided to start to press and trim them, so far so good, then what is this before my eyes, the wrong combinations, some too small, some skew whiff, some so far wrong nothing was gonna fix. So I frog stitched and then restitched.

Dear heavens I don't believe it more frogging, Three days later I have them done! The duds are in the bin

The Helpers

Here they are... the helpers Bailey is the golden cocker and Sapphire (known as Saphy) the black cocker , she doesn't photo so well.

I managed to find my old camera and was able to put a photo up of my railfence. For the life of me I can't find the new camera, bet one of the Helpers has it hidden its them or the fairies for sure.

Hopefully I will pick out the fabrics for the hundred 9 patch blocks, the next part of Bonnies mystery, thats the hardest part the sewing is easy.