On Ringo Lake Update: From Part 3 to the Reveal -- Still Plugging Along

It's time for the last Ringo Lake Link-up today over at Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog now that the big Reveal is out of the bag!  Bonnie did a series of "Rapid Fire" posts right before and on New Year's Day giving us Parts 7, 8 and 9 in succession.  It's another Bonnie beaut of a quilt with some very interesting setting triangles (see Part 9 for those).  For me, I'm no where near the assembly part yet:

I wish I was further along by now but the holidays definitely threw me for a loop.  I had dutifully picked up Parts 3, 4 and 5 when they were released  during December but was still working on Part 3 when I downloaded Part 6 on the last Friday of 2017. 

Since I had big project plans for the New Year (are there any other kind?), I really wanted to be up to date on this mystery as we entered 2018.  I had already planned in my head that I might just be able to do a big piecing push and be ready for the Part 6 link-up, expecting it to be on Tuesday Jan 2.

Fortunately for me when Bonnie revealed Part 6, it turned out that the new unit was something I was very familiar with!  Back in 2015 I had ordered one of Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Technique Sheets for a block she calls a "Shaded Four Patch".  I've also seen this block called "Cat's Cradle".  It's a unit I've seen in a lot of designs I want to make and the same one used in the blocks I made for Eleanor Burns' Quilt In a Day quilt "Fabric Gal" back in 2014.

The Technique Sheet called for the block to be made with the same strip piecing methods as was done for QIAD but the sheet gave instructions for block sizes from 2" to 12" finished whereas the QIAD instructions were only for one size block.  Bonnie's Part 4 had given instructions for the pieced top half of the block and in Part 6 you added the large bottom half triangle.  Knowing this after the fact meant I could construct the whole block all at once and make a pair of them at a time.

While I worked on these,  I also continued making the Part 3 units as leader/enders and started on the Part 5 flying geese. 

 

Just like I had with the Part 2 units, I made the Part 5 geese using my favorite QIAD "Triangle -Pieced Rectangle" method (what I call the "Two Squares" method).  Also good was that while making all of these up, I was also able to throw my En Provence blocks into the leader/ender queue and start moving them forward as well.

At this point it was one down and four more ready to go. 

So as it stands now, I have about 3/4 of the total combo Part 4/6 units needed so I'll need to do another strip cutting session.  I've only got about half of my Part 3 and 5 units done so far.  For the Part 5 geese, I've had to make adjustments to my piecing methods.  Unfortunately my neutral stash is running low and with some of the fabrics I don't have big enough pieces left to cut the large squares I need to do my quick FG method.  Since I also needed more small HSTs to complete the Part 3 piecing, I've resorted to doing the rest of my Part 5 units the old fashioned way:  I've cut QST triangles with a Companion Angle ruler out of my brown fabrics and by cutting a big batch of the HSTs for both I can piece both units the same way.  So this is what I have left to do:

By doing a little each day, I'll get closer to being able to start putting the top together, hopefully by the end of the week.  When that time comes, it'll be fun to see if any piecing "design decisions" (aka oopsies) will wind up creating "unique" layout adjustments.  We will see!  If you are not coming here from the link-up, do go check out what everyone has gotten up to.  You can see some of the great tops that have already been finished with some people posting tips on the best way to get that done as well.

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If you are here from the link-up, did you see the note on Bonnie's post about all the Quiltville swag available on Zazzle?!?!  There are buttons, magnets, mugs, t-shirts, aprons and bags that commemorate all of the Quiltville mysteries to date.  Proceeds from the sale go to purchase supplies for charity quilt projects.  While the sale is on I just had to get pins for the two mysteries I am working on to add to my bag.  I also splurged on a pair of new mugs which, lucky enough for me, were in the exact same colors I needed to replace two mugs I had recently broken.  Score!