Sewing Overtime

Well, the Christmas gifts box went out the door this morning and most of the cards went yesterday. I still have a few more cards, one more batch of cookies (so far I've made these (with peach lavender jam from the summer), these, and these, all of which are quite tasty although the caramel didn't set up), and a few more gifts which I plan to carry on the plane to finish up but I felt this afternoon like I had a bit of time to sew some more on my Mystery Quilt.

I've been asked what a Mystery Quilt is and this seems like as good a time as any to explain a bit. So Bonnie Hunter posts these "hints" on her blog every Friday (basic quilt elements to put together, such as 120 half-pink-half-brown half square triangle blocks at 3.5 inches) and we all follow along blindly until we get to the last step (the past mysteries have had about 7 steps and we're now on 4) where we see what in the world it is that we're making! I know that it'll be a full-size quilt in pink, green, chocolate, cream, and red, but that's absolutely it so far.

Jessica (whose blog I found the mystery through) and I are muddling through together. Having someone to discuss with does make it a ton of fun. But I've been too busy with holiday preparations just now to get much done.

The photos above are, at top, my single 8.5-inch "neutral" block (I'm to make 60 of them but I haven't quite figured out the tricks to sewing onto a paper foundation with my machine), in the middle, 142 of 172 2-inch wide pink-and-green strips, and, on the bottom, most of the 120 pink-and-brown half square triangles (they're not actually to be pinwheels necessarily, I just like arranging them and admiring them as pinwheels). I've not even started on the 120 green-and-neural 2-inch strips and matching 2-inch green blocks. At least I've made a bit of progress though.