Scrap Dance Tango Mystery Quilt

I jumped in with both feet and got underway with the Scrap Dance Tango Mystery Quilt.  This quilt was designed and presented by Carole at From My Carolina Home blog on WordPress.  There is a button on my sidebar to the Scrap Dance Tango Mystery Quilt , or you can follow this link-Scrap Dance Tango Mystery Quilt .  This will take you to the first clue.

A mystery is always fun, because you have no idea what you are making, you just need a level of trust in the designer.  This is my 3rd project that Carole has designed, so I trust her instructions.  What I don’t trust is my sanity!!  I still have the Bonnie Hunter Allietare Winter Mystery Quilt up on the design wall;  Blocks constructed  but not assembled.  And of course, there are the other UFO’s that beg to be finished….but, what can I say….I love a mystery.  (See my GOODREADS book list if you don’t believe me!)

Let me tell you about clue # 1.  All the cutting for the quilt is done in clue # 1.  Did I mention that I am jumping in and doing a KING SIZE??   (CRAZY…..)  I looked and looked at that chart before I jumped in, trying to decide if I was up for the piece count.  I decided I LIKE big quilts, so why not! (DISCLAIMER –  I have 1 king size waiting on final borders – Summer in the Park – a retreat project from 2013, the Allietere and THIS project!  It was recently suggested to me that I need to get a bunch of “big quilts” finished, and take a trip to California to visit my favorite sister-in-law and brother, and use her long arm!  What incentive!)

I still need to cut about 115 more 3″ squares, and I am eyeing the bag of green scraps for that last batch. I need 715 -medium to dark 3″ squares; and have 600 cut. As I was looking at the ones I cut last week, I realized there was a color missing! There is a little green showing with a print that had a lot of red and gold, but I think I will dig deep in the green scrap bag.

I enjoy making half-square triangles when they are a size that works with my June Tailor Perfect Half Square Triangle ruler. It only works with 1/2 inch finish sizes, so I couldn’t use it with the Allietare Quilt, and I ended up using the conventional trimming methods.

Last night I got 100 squared up.

I am going to follow the advice Carole gave in the instruction, and work a batch every day or so. She did say that we can work on these over the course of the next couple of months.  Good thing, because I have other projects underway, and the dreaded UFO list too! (I am going to write a post about my UFO Challenge with my quilt bee on another day!)

I have sewn a lot – and have a basket full ready to be trimmed.

The “waiting to be sewn” basket is still full, and I still have those 115 green squares to cut, and about 435 more neutral 3″ squares to cut as soon as I pick up some more neutral fabric.

This clue also has a large quantity of 2.5″ squares to be cut, both neutral background and medium dark.  I will be looking in my containers of 2.5″ squares first to pull what might be appropriate for those pieces.  I did cut a few of the smaller squares when I was working the scraps to get the 3″. Sometimes you just have a bit that won’t go to 3, and I was able to get 2.5″ out of it, so it all works out.  No waste in my world. And, I haven’t run out of scraps!

Disclaimer — All the neutrals are coming from yardage, as I just don’t have that volume in scraps.  The medium and dark squares did come straight out of my scrap storage system (ala Bonnie Hunter method) or from the wonderful scrap bags that are gifted to me by my friends.

Scrap Dance Tango Mystery Quilt is spread out over 6 MONTHS, which, hopefully, will make it easier to work it in and around other projects.  I think I am going to “limit” my posts about this project to 2  per month.  I will let you have a peak at where I am “today” and then I won’t post again until near the time of the next clue, which is the 2nd Friday of the month.  Carole said she will be putting together a “linky party”, so those who follow her blog and are making this quilt can share their own blog postings with each other.  I do enjoy looking at the photo’s the other quilters have posted so far on FLICKR. I do enjoy seeing the fabric choices others are making.   My pictures will be with the group, or can be seen by clicking thru my WordPress posts.

The snowstorm is over here in Delaware, the outdoors looks serene with the coating of snow and downright cold today!  But the sun is shining, the sky is blue and we only have broken branches scattered around the yard from the last 48 hours of high winds. We are very lucky we are not near the water.  It was a full moon when this storm came in, and the tides were extremely high.  All along coastal communities there is terrible flooding where dunes were breached and sea water came into the streets, stranding people in their homes and flooding cars and shops.  Today is “clean up day” outside, so there won’t be a lot of sewing time.

What is going on in your sewing room and outside your window today?