Mystery Revealed!

Before you read any further, open your mouth wide and inhale noisily. . . go ahead. . . THAT is the sound I made this morning when, still half asleep, I logged on to Quiltville.com where Bonnie Hunter had just revealed her Orca Bay Mystery quilt for all to see. OMG---what a spectacular quilt ! ! ! !

I had seen many of the finished quilts from Bonnie's past mysteries and vowed I'd make one some day even though they looked like a LOT of work. I had high expectations but the fact that I used colors different from Bonnie's had me a little worried. And, since I'd kept track of the time each of the 8 steps took to make as well as the number of pieces used in my very scrappy quilt, I almost dreaded seeing what the quilt would look like--what if I did all that work and spent all those hours as was disappointed?

Obviously, I needn't have worried. I'm SO, SO happy with my quilt! What do you think? This photo shows about half of the blocks I made but it's as big as I can go on my design wall. I'm calling it "Azalea Bay" because Orca just doesn't fit my purple and pink with green color-way. I love Azaleas and they're these colors so it seemed to fit.

So, what are my time and piece totals? I have all the components completed and squared up, all I need to do it sew the top together and so far, I've spent 47 hours and 20 minutes on it. And, give or take a few, there are about 3,564 pieces in my quilt! I'm sure that's a record for me even after making well over 100 quilts in 14 years. By the time I'm finished putting it together and quilting it, I think I'll be in the 70 hour range.

I've learned a lot making this quilt: That the Companion Angle Ruler is a slick tool I'd never tried before, that string piecing is fun, that phone book pages make perfect string piece foundations and that I love making hundred and hundreds of the same little components, chain-piecing my heart out! Who knew?

Bonnie: Thank you for gifting us with your creativity, your expertise and your generosity. If you do this again next year, I'll be right with you!

I'm sure a lot of people have posted their success of this Orca Bay mystery on Judy Laquadara's Design Wall Monday. I urge you to look at all of them!