Tag: Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt

I had to stop chunking when I realized I had to fix a couple of block mistakes in Lupine. I fixed those quickly and got back to chunking, which is easier than putting a quilt together in rows, but still tedious. It seemed to take me forever. Finally, I got all of the blocks together! Yay!

I was worried about the density of the dots in some of the black background, but looking at the quilt in the photo, I think it looks ok. I can see a couple of places where the dots are really dense, but the background pieces don’t make the blocks look wrong. 

After the blocks were together I put the spacer border on. Also, tedious, but necessary. 

I really like that Melody Miller Carousel blue. I am glad I bought more of it so I have enough for the borders.

Now I am on to the Flying Geese border. 

I noticed that Bonnie has taken down the directions on her blog for this quilt. I almost had a heart attack when I clicked on the link to look at the border directions and it was broken. Fortunately, I had saved the PDFs.

It’s a dreary day here as I write this. We are waiting for rain which seems poised to pour down any minute, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet. This means that my workroom is a little dark and grey. It makes me really happy that the life-sucking beige is gone.

I ripped them out while I watched TV one night and then re-sewed at them at a Sew Day I had with SueS, Lee Ann and SueG. I spent a bit of time over a couple of days doing random quilt tasks and this was one of them. 

Now I am ready to continue chunking the center of the quilt.

I slowly worked on chunking the Lupine top together. I had to do it before putting on the border, because Bonnie has us put on spacer border, which prevents me from chunking the border. C’est la vie.

As I was working away I saw one block where I put the corners on wrong. The purple needs to be on the outside. 

🙁

I looked at the blocks on the design wall for awhile to decide if I could stand the mistake and decided it had to come out. I ripped out the corners, flipped them and re-sewed them.

Yay! No problem. Stuff happens. I was done and could move on.

Then I noticed another one. And another. 🙁 I have indicated the wrong blocks with arrows, but you’ll have to make the image (right) larger to see the arrows.

Now I have all the blocks that are wrong unsewn from the chunks. Next step: rip out the corners and re-sew them. 

I fixed one block and it looks fine.

It’s a process, right?

 

Finishing the Pandora Charisma was great! It freed me up to work on other projects. I made my BAM BOM units, worked on the last Four Patch Fun blocks, made a donation block, got back to my normal leaders and enders system and FINISHED the last of Lupine blocks. YAY!

The quilt isn’t done by any stretch, but this is a huge achievement IMO. I am really pleased about it. Now I get to sew all of these blocks together and then start work on the border.

Happy Valentine’s Day, BTW!

Slowly, but surely Lupine is growing.

In between trying to finish the Pandora Charisma and working on other bits and bobs, I am sewing blocks together as well.  I have about 5 more of each of the blocks to make before I can start on the border. 

This is a really dramatic color scheme and I LOVE it.

I spent most of the day on Sunday making blocks for the Lupine quilt instead of working on the Pandora Charisma. The white strips blocks have been on my mind and I wanted to sew some sashing on to them, so I worked on the Lupine blocks and made the white strip blocks my leaders and enders.

I am quite ready to sew this quilt together. Though I am nearing the end of block making I still have some to sew.

I used piecing the Lupine blocks veg a bit. Now that I know what the two blocks look like I am able to piece them pretty quickly. I mindlessly pieced about nine of them one day when I needed a rest, but also needed to sew.

I know I keep bouncing between the Pandora Charisma project and this project. These are the two that are front and center at the moment.

I have a few bits and bobs still to cut, but I decided I had enough pieces to put a few blocks together. 

“Lupine Alternate block” is kind of a sad name for this great block. The pieces from Clue 7 are so cleverly incorporated into this block. While the pieces were a little fiddly to make, they make the corners so much easier than other methods of construction. Also, using the Simply Folded Corners ruler** makes the cutting and sewing easy peasy.

I thought I would just make one to see where I was doing, but like the Potato Chip blocks, I couldn’t make just one.  

Once I saw two of the alternate blocks together, I had to make some of the Lupine Star blocks. I had cut the center strips with the last of the Melody Miller Carousel blue,  so I made a couple of blocks from what I had. 

I had decided that I wanted to use more of that fabric, so I went looking for some and found a couple of yards at the Bloomerie. The fabric was in the washer as I was making some of the alternate blocks.

The pink I used in this one is darker than the pink I used in the alternate block above. I was a little concerned about that, but once I had a few of both blocks sewed together, I thought the variation was fine. 

I used only a few fabrics and am trying to vary which are sewed to which others. It won’t be 100% possible since this isn’t as scrappy as Old Town, for example. However, I think the block combination is looking good so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Bonnie will remove the posts to which I have linked from her blog sometime in February 2026. Download or save the clues now if you want to make this quilt.

 

 

**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this website.

I finished Clue 6, the odd looking blocks with HRTs and HSTs. For about 12 hours I was completely caught up. That is definitely a first with a Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt!

I am really curious to see how these blocks fit into the quilt. Remember we have Flying Geese to fit in as well.

The thing about making blocks for one of Bonnie’s mystery quilts is that once you make the units, the blocks are pretty easy to make. 

Now I am on to Clue 7, some rectangles with flippy corners. I think I’ll use the Simply Folded ruler**. It is a really good ruler. It works really well. I’ll have to look for the mini version. I can’t remember if I have one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Bonnie will remove the posts to which I have linked from her blog sometime in February 2026. Download or save the clues now if you want to make this quilt.

 

 

**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this website.

DONE!

Finally. 

In this case, 2d time around is the charm, but sheesh! It took me long enough to make some simple HSTs.

I am happy for a number of reasons. Done is done, which is good.

Now I can move on to Clue 6. I am really looking forward to making those blocks. I have made a few already just to try them out and to give myself a break from the endless trimming of HSTs. 

Like last year, the HSTs, HRTs and these blocks are all in sets of four, so another million to make.

Now I am almost caught up. I am hoping to get the blocks done in the next few days so I can be ready for the next clue. I am super curious about what comes next.

Finally, thanks to Jeff, as mentioned, I am reacquainted with my Accuquilt. Definitely for future Bonnie Hunter quilts, but in general, I plan to use it more. It is less of a trial to get it out and find the right dies than I had built up in my mind. And, no surprise, the cutting is easier. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Bonnie will remove the posts to which I have linked from her blog sometime in February 2026. Download or save the clues now if you want to make this quilt. 

It’s been a good few days of sewing. I think I re-learned how to count and measure. 🙂

Except for one set of a million* HSTs. I have finished all the clues up to Clue 6. I have to finish those HSTs before I can work on Clue 6.

The biggest achievement was finishing the HRTs. As I mentioned the other day, using the Accuquilt to cut them out was a real life saver. I was able to plow through some of the rote sewing in double quick time.

I was running out of the dots on black fabrics I chose as a background. I always intended to use a variety of colored dots on black, so I wasn’t worried. However, I found fewer multi-colored dots than I expected and panicked a little. I set about hunting out some more. I looked in a couple of other places and found more suitable background fabrics hidden in a  weird place. I’ll be able to work on that last set of HSTs now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*exaggeration for the sake of emphasis. LOL!

I have been working on Lupine steadily since after Christmas. As previously mentioned, it is a lot of piecing. This is not a project to work on while distracted and I have made some cutting errors. This means I have had to re-cut and sew some of the pieces. No shortage of fabric, but frustrating. 

I really wanted to make progress, so I cut some 2.5 inch squares and made the blocks for Clue 5.

Clue 1 was the only clue I had completed, but I had the units I needed so with some squares, I thought this was low hanging fruit, which would give me the boost I needed to get back to the miles of piecing I still needed to do.

These are also the first finished pieces for the quilt. I don’t know how they will fit in, but they show me how the color combination I selected work together. I am pleased. So far the black doesn’t seem too dark and I am using up some fabric that has been around awhile.

Jeff Rutherford gave me a great idea. It was a serious DUH! moment. He made a comment on my blog and sent me some instructions I needed (free, no copyright issues here!), which set off an email exchange. In the course of this exchange, he mentioned he was using his Accuquilt** to cut pieces for the various Luppine clues. I don’t have tons of dies, but thought that even if I had one die that would work, it would be worth dragging out the machine and doing the prep.

It turns out I have three dies that worked for this project, though I couldn’t find one of them. ERGH! Fortunately, I had HST and HRT dies that I could use. There was some pre-cutting because the HST die I have is the “Value“** die. It came with my Accuquilt and has pretty useful shapes. I cut some fabric just the size of the HST section so I wouldn’t waste fabric on shapes I didn’t need. The picture above shows my fabric/die layout before cutting. 

I was able to layer 6 pieces of fabric on the die and cut about 6 HSTs at a time. When you need a lot, it is a good deal. 

I did the same thing with the HRT die. I don’t think I had ever used that die before. I think I bought it when I was writing the HRT Resources guide or while making a donation quilt. Anyway, it worked GREAT. I was able to cut, then sew them together easily. As a bonus I didn’t need to trim. I am behind in getting my clues done, but this machine really helped me to almost get caught up. I have to start incorporating the machine into my thought processes and planning  when working on a quilt that has general sized shapes to cut. If I start using it more, I might even consider buying one of the electric versions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Bonnie will remove the posts to which I have linked from her blog sometime in February 2026. Download or save the clues now if you want to make this quilt.

**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.

I finished Clue 2 FINALLY!

I am very behind, but not giving up. These Flying Geese took a long time, but I was working on the HSTs at the same time. 

Clue 5 will be easier, I think, as it is block making and I might jump to it before I get back to the HRTs and HSTs.

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Bonnie will remove the posts to which I have linked from her blog sometime in February 2026. Download or save the clues now if you want to make this quilt.

I have been working on and off on Lupine, especially after I finished some gifts. 

A week or so ago, I finished the Lupine & Laughter First Clue. I wasn’t sure how the black would look as a background, but I am pleased with the combination. It has a little bit of a 1954 vibe. I know you are thinking “WTH? How can she be so specific?” I have a book called 100 Years of Color** by Katie Greenwood. It gives a palette for each year for 100 years. While 1954 doesn’t have the black as part of the palette, it does have the feeling that occurred to me when I put the combo together.

One concern I have with the black is that the fabric seems to shred very easily. Not within patches, but as I trim shreds of fabric embed themselves in my rotary mat. As I mentioned before, I have had this fabric for a long time, so it is possible that the quality is different from current fabrics. Fortunately, I have a number of blacks with colored dots that I will use for this project, so not all will be subject to this problem.

I am simultaneously working on Clue 2 and 3. I sewed quite a bit over the weekend. It was kind of rote sewing, but it was good that I didn’t have to think too much. I also did quite a bit of trimming, though not enough. There is a lot of trimming in this quilt.

Bonnie always has different ways to make the various units. Friend Julie says that she likes to try the various methods in order to practice and to find the method she likes best. I usually just use a method with which I am familiar. For the HSTs, I am using the 8-at-a-time method you can find under tutorials. Her comment gave me something about which to think. I did use the Essential Triangle Tool** to make the QSTs, which was new-ish to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

N.B. Bonnie will remove the posts to which I have linked from her blog sometime in February 2026. Download or save the clues now if you want to make this quilt.

**Obviously, you should shop at local quilt shops and small businesses. However, if you are too busy or can’t find what you need there, I use Amazon affiliate links and may be paid for your purchase of an item when you click on an item’s link in my post. There is no additional cost to you for clicking or purchasing items I recommend. I appreciate your clicks and purchases as it helps support this blog.