Quiltville Mystery Quilt 2015: Allietare! Clues #1 and #2

Just like the last few years, Bonnie Hunter is sharing her annual mystery quilt on her blog Quiltville. This year it is called Allietare! I participated last year with her Grand Illusion and really enjoyed the process.

Step one: replace the blade in the rotary cutter. So often I cut, and cut, and cut, and cut, and don't even realize how much energy I'm using to do so when the blade gets dull. Remember, rotary blades make a great stocking suffer!

I shared some of my shopping for this project. I think I've shopped at six different shops to find all the fabric for this quilt. I like spreading the small-business shopping around. I purchased fabrics at six different shops this year. I bought the backing fabric online. I have been interested in picking up some of Tula Pink's wide backing called Free Fall. I love the texture of the fabric. With my color choices I thought this would be just right. I'm always a little nervous buying fabric online. Being able to really see fabric is important. (The fabric on the right is the slipper sole fabric I bought for my fleece slippers.  I haven't cut into it yet, but I think it will make my planned slippers so much safer.)

Whenever Bonnie shares a clue I look at the tiny pieces and almost groan. It isn't difficult to work with small pieces.

The sheer numbers are mind boggling. I think last year Grand Illusion had almost 3000 pieces.

This quilt looks like it is going to pass that number. I took the first clue in small-ish bites and made part of them over the first week. The three photos above are from three days of cutting and sewing these tiny blocks. (If you want the know the sizes and counts for these little half-square-triangle blocks you have to go to Bonnie's blog Quiltville and look up Allietare.) I didn't trim my blocks until Saturday.

These are my test pieces for clue two. I know these aren't real flying geese, but they are as close to them as I've ever gotten. Making these made me realize I might not mind flying geese as much as I fear. I may have to play with making a few using Bonnie's technique.

On Saturday I had time to work on clue two and trim up all those half-square-triangle blocks from clue one. My bin is quickly filling up! Now that I've finished clues one and two I think I'll pull out some of my holiday fabrics and come up with some sort of plan. I swear I don't buy holiday fabrics but they keep showing up in my sewing room. Or some crumb blocks, those might be good to fit in during my limited time during the week. So many projects and so little time.

Are you participating in Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt this year?

Linking up with Quiltville.

What am I listening to this week? The Crafty Planner did an amazing interview with Karen McTavish and I need to catch up with Stephanie at Modern Sewciety.