Saturday, December 26, 2009

New year's Eve Mystery Quilt

QT Mystery Quilts is hosting a NYE project- the past two years I have joined a NYE Mystery and this year will be quilting along with three local quilter friends. We will be working together on the mystery quilt all NYE day and I am using only stash fabrics as in the past two years.
There is quite a collection of African theme fabrics untouched to date in the stash so I pulled them out to try and find a nice arrangement of two mediums, a dark, a light, a focus and a border fabric.

This was the first idea - left to right, far left is the light, the next two are the mediums, the orange is the focus and the last on the right is the dark.
The mediums give me some concern for two reasons.
1-The large gold print will get lost when cut up into small pieces
2-The two golds are fairly close in value and may not have enough contrast


Here is a brown to replace the large-print gold that will then work perfectly for the border.
This looks like the better alternative, the brown print is rather geometric but it will do, it doesn't matter to me if it goes in different directions, makes the design more interesting. Tell me what you think if you have an opinion-most of us quilters do, LOL!
It's good to be able to use some of this ethnic collection and I am determined not to buy for the project, I want to use stash in order to rotate older fabrics out of stash to make room for new ones! Taking into consideration fabric purchases for this year-around 100 yards-the stash so far has decreased by about 50 yards, but my goal is more ambitious for the coming year. The"fabric out" total could conceivably increase by 40 yards or so if the four projects in progress were all done by year's end! Not likely that will happen but I might get one or two done. Stay tuned!


Christmas Day I made cinnamon buns- did the prep. Christmas Eve so they only had to be baked on Christmas Day. Sons #1 and #4 and their families met up with DH and me at the home of son #2 to eat, visit and open gifts. Youngest DGS is missing from the group pic, he was napping, but here is the little cutie with his "Docband "helmet, he has to wear it 23 hours/day for about seven months. You can see his Mum and Dad have decorated it with their favorite team colors, go Cowboys! Baby Matthew is 8 months old.

Below is a pic of his Daddy at about the same age, wearing one of DH's flight helmets, think these two are related?!


Then our "boys" went off to visit the other side of their families and DH and I came home for a quiet evening.
The Shakespeare quilt was calling to me and a spot of mindless sewing, more scrappy pot holders put together from border blocks left over from the strip scrap quilt.


The backs are larger scrap pieces enlivened by the selvedge bindings.

This week these two numbers were drawn from the VTT comments.
JoJo's and Keetha's vintage aprons and scrappy pot holders will be in the mail to them probably Monday.
There will be one more drawing next week after VTT.

8 comments:

Keetha Broyles said...

Whoooo Hooooo!!!! I'm a winner! And I get to see my name in print on YOUR blog! Will the excitement never cease?!?

Your little cutie is just that - - - an adorable little cutie! I LOVE that he is wearing a football helmet. AND yes - - - he is ONE apple that did NOT fall far from the tree! Looks just like his dad!

Tatersmama said...

I wish I knew how to quilt... You're such an inspiration and I wish I could just get off my butt and DO it! My grandmothers were both quilters, my mom dabbled in it a bit, but whenever I've tried to do even the simplest thing, I mange to balls it up somehow. *sigh*
I LOVE the colors of the fabrics you've chosen, though!

joanne said...

How fun is that??? VERY...I am SO excited to see my apron...thank, thank, thank YOU.

Love the photo, such a beautiful family...no wonder you are worn out! Take care...jj

Gramma 2 Many said...

Thinking I really like the second arrangement. I actually love the fabrics. I agree that the gold is going to lose some of its value when it is cut into smaller pieces.
Love the family picture. A very smart looking family:)
Happy New Year to you all!!

Andee said...

Fabrics look great, can't wait to see how that comes out! I have red, white and blue ish colors. Did the presewing yesterday, ironed them all tonight and hope to trim them tomorrow...this mystery is approaching fast!

teresa said...

The quilting is wonderful as are your color choices. Your grandson looks like your son exactly. Isn't that amazing. Happy New Year

Unknown said...

What a beautiful family you have and yes, those two little guys could definitely not disown one another! How adorable are those pictures, helmets and all!

Mary said...

Go Cowboys! He is so cute!