PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along Starburst Blossoms Stories

It's been a few days since the PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along was revealed. So what did everyone think? Were you surprised? Did I do a decent job keeping it a Mystery? I hope everyone had fun playing along and building the units from month to month. Now the real fun begins..... 

I certainly hope you like any of the versions I dreamed up, but before you start sewing everything together, why not take some time and play around with your units and the block placement.

As you can imagine, planning and organizing this endeavour was a an amazing experience. I began in early April of 2017, and here we are, a year later, and the whole thing is coming to its conclusion!!! I couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement from the members of the PEIMQG. 

Huge thanks go to President Heather J. for proofing ALL the written text for the tutorials. This in itself was a massive undertaking....(I will freely admit that I struggle with punctuation!!!! and spelling and grammar... Yikes!)

I also had a few members kind enough to act as pattern testers to make sure that all the math and measurements were correct and clear. Thank you to Heather J, Jean and Linda.  I encouraged them to be creative with the units and their layouts. Boy-oh-boy, they didn't disappoint!!! I asked these kind ladies to share their personal thoughts and explain how they made their quilts their own. 

We will start with the smallest and work our way to the largest.

Here are their Starburst Blossoms Stories.......


Linda's

I decided I would make a single block and give myself permission to play around with the colour choices for this project, hence the "Kona Brick" solid for background.

I made the "tulip" corners according to instructions, but my mini quilt wanted something that enclosed the edge more and drew the eye back into the centre. 

Rather than do this with a border around the edge, I decided to reduce the scale of the tulips and use the space for elongated half rectangles as leaves. The original tulips are based on a 3 x 3 grid of 2" squares (finished); my tulips with leaves are a 4 x 4 grid of 1.5" squares (finished).

My mini was beautifully quilted by Colleen H. in a starburst pattern using variegated pastel threads. I feel it really emphasizes the starburst design. 

I was blown away with how great all the mystery quilts turned out for our 3 pattern testers. The differences were intriguing and I will be spending a lot of time studying them when they are posted. Cathy put a huge amount of work into preparing all the information with so many different sizes and both traditional and modern layouts.

~Linda

Jean's

This has been a fabulous quilt along! Cathy Victor went way beyond with this pattern which allowed us so much choice in quilt size, type and layout. I now have a new favourite quilt that was not as labour intensive as other QALs I have  done and I learned a new trick or two which is always a bonus.

I purchased the text printed background fabric on our summer trip to Alberta at a really, really good price. Being a librarian, I love text and map printed fabrics. What I did not realize until I got home was the text was in French! No problem, just a surprise.

The next surprise was the first installment and the choices given. No question, Modern was the one for me.

Later, I learned that half square rectangles are not trimmed the same as half square triangles. Thank goodness I read the instructions  and viewed the video. I felt like Cathy had put that part in just for me!

I arranged the blocks in a way that was most pleasing to me on my design wall, stitched it together and bundled it off by post to my fabulous friend in Calgary to quilt for me. Now, Laila Nelson always knows that she has totally free rein when it comes to the longarm quilting and I love her creativity. When the quilt came home, imagine my surprise, when obviously Laila saw the design differently and had turned it 90 degrees. 

I had forgotten to mark the top. However, now it  looks even more modern as the design came in from the right and not from the left. Go figure! I love serendipitous events!

Cathy, should you decide to do another mystery quilt along you can count me in...

~Jean 

Heather J's

Mysteries are great reading material, but for a quilt, sometimes I'd rather know where my fabric choices are going to end up in the quilt! I took a leap of faith, and jumped in!  I was amazed at how the different monthly clues came together at the end, with Cathy throwing in those additional surprise cutting instructions.

I chose the collection from Libs Elliot curated by Mad About Patchwork and decided that my background would be a mix of low volume fabrics.  I knew I  was going to do the modern version, with a twist! 

I wanted to see what the block would look like if I broke up one frame.

In my negative spaces and in the black HST frame, I showcased one low volume print. 

Liz, from Blueberry Cove Longarm Quilting Studio, custom quilted it, calling it "my secret garden" as she was quilting it. She did a superb job, using a variety of thread colours, even quilting a cat in amongst the LV cat faces fabric. 

Mine is larger than the pattern, but using a wool batt makes for a fabulous drape in this quilt.
  

I am thrilled with my quilt!!! Thanks for keeping us in suspense Cathy!  It was fun!  This will be my quilt to snuggle under while reading my mysteries!

P.S.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone's interpretation of their Starburst Blossoms!  I hope you will share your stories when you post your quilt selfie (picture)!

~Heather J.

I am so pleased to see the way my fellow Guild members interpreted their quilts. I encourage anyone who wants to share their quilts and impressions of the PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along, to send a photo and their thoughts on the experience to peimqgmystery@gmail.com If you would like to be featured on the PEIMQG blog please let us know that it is okay to share your "Starburst Blossom Stories" with our followers.

~Cathy