New Year's Mysteries!

On New Year's Eve Day I sewed with Barb, Becky, BJ, and Dr. Kathy.  Not everyone was sewing this mystery quilt, but I was. (I wrote these two days backwards and mixed up which quilt was which day so they are out of order because I did not want to move all the pictures!)  So NYD's mystery was Merry Mayhem.  The gal that does this is planning one more mystery this year and then retiring.  I love her mysteries, so I am bummed they are about over.  

Here are a few of the pictures from that. It is Merry Mayhem #149 (from New Year's Day)

                                            
The first clues went well and I was having a good time.  We had pork roast in the crock pot (since Burgundy Beef turns out to give me a migraine) and it was a fun morning!  When I put the initial blocks together I had no issues.  THEN you combine four of the blocks to make the big block.  As you can see from the picture I had issues with this--as did half the people posting on the group.  Turns out you cannot just look at the edge pieces to match up the block as they will look right, but the middle will not.  You need a square of square brights (in my case) in the center of each block.  So there was much unsewing.
                                        
Then after getting that squared away (I think this is actually the next day) I sewed the blocks together and managed to jack that up too.  Low and behold it mattered which way the blocks went.

Below is the square I was after.

So I sewed the entire thing together.  Thought it was fabulous, took a picture and whoops the top row is wrong.  And after that I discovered a turned triangle, which I fixed.  

There is still a turned triangle in here (someone else pointed out) but I shall leave it as a reminder of all the ripping that happened with this quilt.  I love how it turned out but am unlikely to make another one of there!

Here is Barb's block.  Also not a square.  LOL. I even helped explain to her what she needed to do to make it match. It was tricky!

                                     

In the end, Barb got hers figured out.  It looks great!  I think she already donated the top to Nimble Thimbles.  

On New Year's Day Stitchin' Heaven presented their mystery quilt.  They had technical difficulties, and they give out all but the layout in their "clue" and as always it is way more than can be done in a day.  We do not plan to attempt this one again next year.  I cut mine from Halloween fabric and have not even started it.  This has never happened before on mystery day, but I was too busy ripping the first mystery and overwhelmed by the pattern given in the second mystery (instead of one simple clue).  Barb has been working on hers in batiks in the days since.  I may never make mine as I do not think it works with Halloween fabric.

So NYE we worked on this one.  It is called Game Day and was designed by Sherri at Cuts and Bolts.  Not sure that my clues are in order, but here they are.

                                        

                                                    
                                                    
 Here is Becky's so far.

                                                              
Here is BJ's block.  She also planned to make all four quilts (as I did, Becky picked two and Barb three I think).  She is taking turns working on all four plus Bonnie's Old Town mystery so she is making good progress on all of them!

                                                            
On New Year's Day, I wound up sewing on my own until after noon since Becky did not sleep well, Barb slept in, and BJ was chatting with her cousin.  I was really disappointed that our plans fell apart and had a pretty bad day.  It did not really improve until evening when Kathy played me a few games.  I am still crazy solo gaming too.  The amount of ripping and struggle I had with the Merry Mayhem quilt was frustrating.  I was even confused about which colors I did for what since I did it scrappy and it took me about thirty minutes to figure that out and start the first clue.  Each clue took as long as the time allotted and I felt behind all day.  It sucked!

At 2 PM my time Debbie from Mystery Quilts Anon posted clues to her quilt.  She gave us tons of presewing this year (unexpectedly) and this quilt was another doozy.

I love my fabrics for this quilt, and love the snail's trail blocks too.

I did not love the final quilt top and stopped making blocks and started doing my own thing.  I just do not love the square center thing in many of her quilts.  So I made some blocks using my cut parts (turns out the last page of her PDF was not in the cutting instructions so I did not even have the entire quilt cut on the day, ugh.  Also, she gave a surprise pre sewing clue the day or two days before which I did not even see so this mystery year just bit the big one!)  I played around with the blocks (on my small sewing room floor) and came up with a layout I like.  Made a few more blocks for the corners and just need to sew this one together.  It is called Through the Looking Glass.

Now on to Bonnie's Out Town.  She threw the final clue at us on New Year's Eve when I was not quite done with the clue before.  ACK!  I did finish the flying geese at some point.  I then when on to start the final clue which is (as always) a doozy.

I now have fifteen of my twenty-five blocks made.  Ten to go (and I plan to work on it today).  Liking it so far, her design is gorgous!

This one is BJ's.

This one is Becky's.

Barb skipped Old Town this year.

Becky, Barb and I are now planning to start Kim Diehl's Simple Whatnots Mystery Stitchalong  Midnight Snack this week too!  We love mystery quilting!