Good Fortune Mystery Quilt: Clue 1

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Soon after I became interested in quilting, I stumbled across Bonnie Hunter and her Quiltville blog (click here). I had made my first quilt, which was a feast of straight line sewing and I was looking for a challenge. Bonnie is the doyenne of scrap quilting and she runs an annual Mystery Quilt with clues releases one by one, week after week. Usually, the clues start after American Thanksgiving and continue until roughly Christmas / New Year.

Mystery Quilt: Celtic Solstice

The Celtic Solstice Mystery Quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter and pieced by Patrick Hughes

I decided to take part in that season (2013/14) because the design was inspired by a trip Bonnie had undertaken to Ireland that year. I could hardly resist, but it was a baptism of fire! My attempt is shown above. All these years later, I have to confess that it remains just a top, unquilted.

Time for a New Mystery!

I have not taken part in subsequent mystery quilts due to work commitments, but this year I have enough time to take part and so this post is about Clue #1. Please note: I worked on this in 2018/19, so the pattern is now available for purchase from Bonnie’s website. Click here to be brought to that page (this is NOT an affiliate link).

Good Fortune Mystery Quilt

I’m excited to share how I got on. For the record, I do not include any information about sizes or numbers of pieces as it’s important that all credit goes to the creator of the pattern. But I do want to share MY experience of making the quilt!

The first clue included four patch patchwork as you can see from my images.  When I have made these before, and when they are relatively small in size, I struggle to get a completely square result.

Four-patch Sliver Trimming

This year, I tried out something new. I made the patches a touch bigger than required and sliver-trimmed them down to the correct size.  I swore in the past that I would never sliver trim, but despite my very best efforts, this is the only way to get it perfect.

You might be able to see all the slivers in the picture above! This is only clue #1, but I managed to make the number indicated in the clue. I am using up scraps for both my reds and my neutrals. The goal is to avoid buying any new material for this quilt.

I’m enjoying the process so far. If you like sharing your work, say hello over on Instagram, where I am @patrickquilts or just click here for that.

Click here to see the full list of Quilting Articles, including the rest of this Mystery Quilt!