My husband is amazing, absolutely amazing! He is so supportive of my quilting, and I am so grateful for that. It is a bit of a long story, but for anyone who wants to hear it, here goes.
I have been babysitting about 50 hours a week, so sewing time is getting hard to find. I have been super busy with a few important projects and getting those to the finishing stages. Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt starts on Black Friday, and she just put up fabric requirements.
DH knows how much I enjoy doing Bonnie's Mystery quilts. Hers are the only mysteries I've ever done. I have all kinds of valid excuses of why I shouldn't do the mystery this year, but he encouraged me to join in. He asked what the colors were, and asked what colors I was planning on doing, since he knows I change up the colors most of the time.
Here is the thing, I REALLY like the colors Bonnie chose. However, I do not want to make a quilt virtually identical to everyone else's. I checked my stash for the black and white prints, and in my huge stash I found five, four fat quarters and one two yard piece. I didn't want to buy a lot to do the mystery, so right there I eliminated the black and white prints.
I have plenty of black fabrics, so I considered doing the background black. In fact, that was what I was leaning towards doing. I think Bonnie's colors with a black background would look great, maybe a substitute for the gray, I was thinking pink or orange.
I was talking this through with DH, and I told him I didn't want to go buy the black/white prints, I could do the black background and the colors mostly, if not all from stash, and the end result would be a good wedding gift someday. I have given most of the mystery quilts away as wedding gifts. He asked if I had considered any other color combinations, and told me he didn't mind at all if I bought fabric for the mystery. I told him that I had thought a red background would be fun to make, not only red, but a solid red, completely non-scrappy and not my norm. He asked why I didn't go with that. I told him the color combo I had in mind for that was a little odd, it likely would never be able to be given as a wedding gift, and it was far more practical to choose something more mainstream that could be used as a gift someday. His answer to me was priceless.
"What is practical about art? Do the color scheme you are excited about!"
Just one of the many reasons I love him! So, I dug out a six yard piece of solid red I had for the background. I dug out one piece of each of the colors I plan on using too, to help me when pulling fabrics later. DH even took me shopping today, and I bought several fat quarters in some of the colors of which I don't have a good selection.
So here are my colors for the Easy Street mystery quilt:
My solid red for the background, a cheddary/mac and cheese-ish yellowy orange, apple/lime green, medium blue, and red/plum purples. In case you are wondering, this matches absolutely nothing in my house, I have no idea who would want a quilt in these colors, but you know what, these colors make me happy, and I think it will be fun to work with them. Now I am excited for the mystery to start!
Besides washing up the fat quarters I bought today, I am not pulling any more fabric. Last year for Orca Bay, I pulled a bunch of fabrics, and used virtually none of them, as I had most of what I needed in my strip drawers. I will pull fabrics when I know what sizes I need, and see how many I have already cut into strips and ready to go! Depending on the sizes we need, I may not have to cut any blue or green.
I've seen a lot of discussion on the yahoo group about constant fabrics, Bonnie is using a gray (grey) for her constant. I have been all over on that for Bonnie's mysteries. My first mystery was Double Delight, which I finally got made into a quilt top this year, but it's still not quilted. (It's for my bed, that's why it keeps getting put off) My stash was small back then, so I only went scrappy on two colors, and even had to buy to do that. Everything else was a single fabric, because it was all I had.
On Carolina Christmas, I changed up the colors, but used a constant fabric in the same place Bonnie did, and honestly wished I hadn't. Carolina Christmas ended up as a wedding gift.
For RRCB, I changed all the colors, used blue as my neutral, and used no actual neutrals at all in the quilt. Again, it got used as a wedding gift. I used a constant in the same place Bonnie did, and was happy with the results.
For Orca Bay, I again changed all the colors, used no neutrals at all. Mine is brown, gold, rust, and green. I kept Orca Bay.
Looks like I will likely end up keeping Easy Street too, but I am making it mine with the odd color combination. Since I will have such a plain background, I am doing the rest scrappy, and I will be surprised if I am sorry about that, I think it will work just fine.
A bit off topic, but I when I was watching quiltcam the other day, Bonnie talked about burning her finger on her iron, and someone wrote to her saying if she put vinegar on it it would keep it from blistering. A couple days later, I burned THREE of my fingers on my iron (don't ask, just stupidity on my part). They were hurting pretty badly, and I remembered the vinegar thing. We were out of aloe, and I was pretty miserable and tried putting vinegar on the burns. It was like magic! The burning pain eased up immediately, and where it was starting to blister, stopped changing right then, and never got any worse. Whoever gave that tip, THANK YOU!
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