It stared a while back. I first encountered Alycia from the Alycia Quilts blog over on Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2015. She is a quilter, designer, and photographer. Her photographs are spectacular and many BEG to be transformed into quilts! That's why I've been following her blog ever since. They tease and tempt the art quilter in me (and I don't let her out very often, let me tell you.)
While photography is one of Alycia's passions, another is quilting for the Quilts of Valor program. She has been running block drives and designing QOV Mystery Quilts for the state of Colorado for a number of years. I joined her Quilts for Military yahoo group a couple of years ago, but have yet to participate in one of her mysteries (aside from collecting the clues.) I recently finished a LARGE commission quilt and decided that THIS TIME... I might actually be able to quilt along!
As I mentioned, I've been collecting clues, but haven't been in a position to quilt along... even though Alycia claims that each clue only takes about an hour to complete. Maybe one day I'll even be able to catch up on the past 5 mysteries. Until then, I'm REALLY, REALLY hoping to participate in sewing this one!!
SEW...
The Announcement - Find the announcement HERE and quilt along, if you can.
Fabric Requirements:
Clue 1:
After realizing that I didn't have the appropriate yardage for the fabric that I wanted to use, I took a road trip to Find X Designs in Sanford, North Carolina. Members of my Bee have visited and found it to be a delightful shop. I quite agree.
Good news!!
They had the color that I was looking for. Along with an unusual backing option, it's a knit fabric:
Oops!! AND... A really good yellow that was too good to pass up.
Step 1: Some cutting
Step 2: Some HSTs
Step 3: Some Flying Geese
Clue 2:
Rinse and repeat. Thanks, Alycia, for making things easy on us!!
Step 1: Some cutting
Step 2: Some big HSTs
Step 3: Some Flying Geese
I've got GOOD NEWS!!! Needleb has agreed to let me use some of her large scale print to complete my quilt. Thank you!!!!!!!!
Clue 3:
And again!!
Step 1: Some cutting
Step 2: Some big HSTs
Step 3: Some Flying Geese
I kind of did all of these in an A6 Marathon...
Next, we had to determine which one of these fabrics read as a light? I'm sure that you would agree, we decided on the floral:
As I finished cutting the peachy "Dark 1" for Alycia's A6 QOV Mystery, I realized that I had enough fabric to make it my "background." Hooray!! Now, the gray can move into the Dark #1 spot and allow the juicy peach to shine. Back to the cutting board:
Next came the sewing...
Medium/Dark #2 HSTs:
Medium/Light HSTs:
A combined shot of the fruits of today's labor:
The day before Clue 4 was released!!!
Clue 4
Step 1: Lay out the top half of the quilt.
Step 2: Sew the rows.
Step 3: Assemble the top half of the quilt.
Note: I added the steps this time (just to keep the format the same.) Alycia told us what to do in a few lines and gave us a picture to follow.
THIS is what mine looked like, sans corner stars:
Can you BELIEVE how fast this quilt went together?!?!
I'm SERIOUSLY shocked that I could make nearly HALF a quilt in ONE day, then turn around and finish the components the next, AND have that half of the quilt ASSEMBLED the same day!!!
Except that I chose NOT to do the assembly, as I wasn't sure about the color placement. Things just seemed a bit OFF, so I waited for the next clue to determine how to proceed.
Clue 5
Step 1: Lay out the bottom half of the quilt.
Step 2: Sew the rows.
Step 3: Assemble the top half of the quilt.
(You might notice) I made some adjustments...
... And then borrowed some fabric from Britt:
Only then, did I begin to assemble the rows:
I'm pleased with the changes that I made:
HERE is how my A6 Mystery Quilt top turned out:
Minus the joining seams.
Oops!! I ran out of time before having to leave for my Weekly Quilt Group. I've since pressed those seams and assembled the rows. SEW... I'm pleased to present my version of Alycia's A6:
The photo was taken from atop a chair. Don't worry! I didn't fall off. Whew!! That was challenging, but now comes the REALLY hard part. Deciding on the quilting design...
Any recommendations???
Thanks again, Alycia, for a FAST and FUN mystery!
Until next time...
Quilt for GOOD!!!
Love your bold choices. I have come up with a solution to my background shortage and have spent a bit of time with my seam ripper today.
ReplyDeleteLove the cherry blossom fabric. Is this going to be a QOV?
ReplyDelete