Progress on Frolic

The last time I shared photos of the progress on Frolic, Bonnie Hunter's 2019 mystery quilt, was late April. At that time I had decided to make more blocks and change my quilt from square to rectangular. Here are some new blocks as they were being assembled.

It took until mid-May to get all the additional blocks and sashing units made. Then everything hung around on my design wall for ages. Over the last week, I have been pushing to get all those parts joined together, and yesterday it finally happened. Here is the completed center for my Frolic quilt!

The next step will be deciding what to do for borders. Bonnie's version had two rows of HSTs, but I might go with something simpler. According to my quilt software, it should currently measure about 55" x 73.5". I'm debating how big I want it to end up. This is where so many of my quilt projects get bogged down!

Linking up with:
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
BOMs Away at What a Hoot Quilts
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Frolic on Design Wall Monday--4/20/20

All of the blocks for my version of Bonnie Hunter's 2019 mystery quilt "Frolic" have been hanging around on the design wall for almost a month. Over the weekend I decided it was time to start joining them together. Here's what has been on the wall since late March. The bottom row is cut off a bit by a table in front of the design wall.

As I got started sewing the parts of one lower corner together, I realized that one reason I've been avoiding joining these blocks was that I am not happy with the size my quilt is ending up. Bonnie's original design was for a quilt that finished at 82" x 82". I made a little over half as many parts, and my quilt as shown would finish at around 57" square before borders--not the most useful size for a quilt. I decided it was time to bite the bullet and make some more blocks, a task I've been avoiding, but I know I will be happier with the end result. I'm going to change the quilt from a square into a rectangle, with my estimated size being 57" x 75" before borders.

Because I have a very limited selection of pale aqua fabrics, I am going to turn four of the half blocks shown around the outer edges of the quilt into whole blocks, plus make one new whole block. I will also make six new half blocks to surround the center, repeating the fabrics from other half blocks. I spent a large portion of the weekend digging out the right fabrics and cutting pieces, then did a little sewing. The first couple of new half blocks are completed!

There are many more parts left to make for this quilt because of my change in plans, but I know I will be happier with the final product. The extra time and work will definitely be worth it in the long run.

Linking up with:
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
BOMs Away at What a Hoot Quilts
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA

Laundry Basket Quilts 2020 Mystery--Quilt Top Done (maybe?)

Another week, another quilt top to show! That is highly unusual for me. Full disclosure: the Elvira top that I shared a few days ago (in this post) was actually completed on March 28th. It took a couple of weeks to get decent photos of it and write a blog post. Today's quilt top was just finished yesterday, April 12th.

2020 Mystery Quilt
60.5" x 60.5"

This is my version of the Laundry Basket Quilts 2020 Mystery by Edyta Sitar. For 15 consecutive days, from March 20th until April 3rd, Edyta shared a different quilt block pattern. Each day's block needed to be made 4-8 times (except for one day when our assignment was to make 16 of the daily block!) At the end of the 15 days, we would have a total of 100 blocks, all finishing at 6", which then were assembled into this lovely design. 

I started out well for the first couple of days, but soon got distracted by other projects. I returned to this QAL for the final week of block designs, and nearly managed to make up for lost time, completing my last set of blocks one day after the final block pattern was released. It took most of my free time last week to get all the blocks joined together into this top.

The close-up photo gives a better look at some of my fabrics. Edyta's version of the mystery quilt used her "Super Bloom" line of fabrics in lovely blues and rosy pinks. I had a bundle of fabrics from one of her earlier lines, "Something Blue" which was mostly blues and a few tan/light brown prints. Almost all of my blue fabrics in this quilt were from that line, plus a couple of the tans and about half of the cream background fabrics. The rest of the fabrics were pulled from my stash. It's times like this that I am so grateful to have that wonderful fabric stash!

"Something Blue" fabrics by Laundry Basket Quilts

The one remaining question with this quilt is whether or not to add any borders. The current size is 60.5" x 60.5", and it might be more useful if it were larger. I know there are some lovely blue and brown fabrics in my stash that could be used for borders. That is a decision I will be pondering over the coming week.

I had so much fun following along with this mystery quilt. The variety of different block patterns really helped keep it interesting, and Edyta's instructions were very clear. I believe the mystery will be removed from the Laundry Basket Quilts blog at some point soon, but I don't know if it has happened yet. If it's still there, I highly recommend downloading Edyta's patterns for this lovely quilt.

Linking up with:
Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt
BOMs Away at What a Hoot Quilts
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Needle & Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA