Quiltville Mystery Season: Indigo Way Part 3

And the mystery continues!  If you are following along on Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery "Indigo Way",  you can pick up the latest clue here.  Remember, these links will only be on her blog while the mystery is current.  If you are interested in working on this later on, download the clues now.  Once the mystery is over, Bonnie will "retire" them as a pattern in her online store.  Also take an opportunity to check out the sights and sounds of Vietnam that Bonnie shares from her trip there that inspired this year's mystery design.  

Those that are working on Part 3 will now be making what Bonnie calls "Split Half-Square Triangles" and gives instructions for making them using rotary cutting methods and her "Essential Triangle Tool".  I know this block as the "Shaded Four Patch" because that's what Deb Tucker calls them and I use the methods from one of her technique sheets to make them.  

I've also seen this block called "Cat's Cradle" and there is a Creative Grids ruler to make them which I know about because I had purchased one as a Christmas gift for my MIL a few years back.  Lastly, if you follow the great You Tube videos of Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts, she calls them "Mary's Triangles" and has a PDF tutorial on her website explaining her technique for piecing them.  It's great that there are so many ways to accomplish this task so use the one that works best for you!  

As for me, my mystery season is moving along --- just not as efficiently as I had hoped!  My plan for the season has been to finish up the mystery tops I've already made.  The first of those that I have worked on has been "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll".  The plan for this week was to get it layered and basted and start on the quilting.  While the basting is now done....

.....but it was a bit of a trial to get it there!  Last week I noted that I didn't have a lot of basting pins free at the moment because I have other basted quilt sandwiches sitting around in various stages of being or waiting to be quilted.  I was able to get the center of "Cotton Boll" basted with the pins I had free and ordered another set while doing some Cyber Monday shopping.  Unfortunately, when that set arrived, it turned out that they were not quite enough to complete the task!   

I had ordered a pack 50 pins -- yeah right, that only got me through basting one corner of this quilt!!  Needless to say I then had to run out and purchase another set.  I figured that if 50 pins got me through one corner, I'd need 150 to complete the other three.  The Joann's I went to only had packs of 100 or 300 so of course I got the latter.  Guess how many I had left when I finished the basting:

Yeah, used them ALL up, LOL!!  I will also say that when I finally got it all basted and turned the quilt sandwich over to check the back, I had some significant pleats pinned in on one side (how'd that happen?!?).  A similar thing had happened when I made my "Civil War Strippie" back in 2021 although not for the same reason.  So just like back then,  I had to put in straight pins from the back to isolate the area, turn the sandwich over, remove the basting pins in that section in the front and re-pin that area, making sure that the backing was pulled taunt.  Sigh!  Oh what we have to do to "birth" a quilt!!

However, now that it's ready for quilting, I am not resting on my laurels.  Since the cutting table will be empty while I work on quilting "Cotton Boll",  I've already pulled out the next mystery top I want to work on.  That will be "Old Tobacco Road" that was finished up back in 2021.  

Surveying the supplies I have for this one, I saw that I had a Twin Size batting sitting with the top and backing.  However, I had not written down the measurements of the top.  Taking them now, I see that it is a little larger than Twin Size.  The good news there is that the Queen-size batting I had used for "Cotton Boll" had been a little larger than I needed and I had cut a significant strip off of it during the layering process.  Luckily enough, that strip is wide and long enough to provide the extensions I need for the "Tobacco Road" batting!  So after I press the top and backing, I will be doing a little "Frankenbatting" work before I get the layering for that quilt under way.   

This will also help keep me on task for the "Cotton Boll" quilting since I will need the pins I remove from that one to use to layer the next one!!  Here's hoping that everyone is enjoying a little "mystery season magic" along with their Holiday Cheer!