Allietare Winter Mystery Kick-off

Linking with Heather at Needlework Tuesday
 Yesterday we met to begin the first clue of Bonnie's Winter Mystery

The now traditional cake and below the labels I made using purchased prepared fabric sheets and our ink jet printer.

 Some of the group who came, much smaller turnout this year - five last minute cancellations. We meet at the Chandler Police Station a nice big room for us to spread out our "stuff"!

Angela caught me rotary cutter in hand about to "dissect" some fabric!

The BH Divas!

More quilters actually finished their last year's mystery, Grand Illusion. Most followed Bonnie's color guide fairly closely but still there was color variation in the quilts. BJ chose totally different color-way and used yardage rather than scraps which I decided to do this year too. I know it will quite change the look but that's OK, it will not be so busy. That's BJ 's quilt second from the left and yours truly on her left.
This first clue surprised us all it seemed too easy, 296 Half Square Triangles in grey and neutral. My grey is the blue with stars as in the pic below.

 All are now sewn but most still need to be cut and pressed. I used the "eight at a time" method but others had their own preferences, I find this to be accurate and fast, I do not like fussing with nearly 900 separate tiny triangles!

 Here is a link to a tutorial on this method on Craftsy, no need to repeat it here.

It requires only sewing diagonally both direction either side of a drawn line. 

Then cut four times, horizontal and vertical 

then corner to corner each direction.

Eight magic triangles, and since I measured and sewed accurately my squares are exactly two inches unfinished, perfect!

Angela has made this a tradition, we will be doing it again next year God willing.