Yes! another Mystery Quilt project coming up! This will be a larger quilt top, meant as a small bed or lap throw, it will measure around the 50 x 70 inches and can be done with scraps or in a limited palette.
This project is especially for those who plan to celebrate New Years at home. The first installment will be New Years Eve, December 31, 2010, there is a fair amount of cutting so this is the day to cut your fabrics along with some "strata" type piecing. Plan to spend a few hours at this! Then on New Years Day, January 1, 2011 piecing will continue and if you have no plans for a big dinner or other visiting you should be able to spend 3 or 4 hours in your sewing room. Finally, Sunday, January 2, 2011, you can relax a bit and piece the sections together and perhaps add a wide border, depending on if you like borders or want to slightly increase the size -- the plan is that a border will be added and it will be fairly wide.
I am of an age where New Year's Parties do not hold much interest and kissing people at midnight is definately not my style! So this project is for the person who wants a couple of quiet days at home to do something that is not part of the crowd! So this Raise a Ruckus will be a quiet and industrious type of Ruckus! The Fireworks will be part of the quilt that you create!
You will need to pay close attention to the light, medium and dark hues of fabric but along with that you will need to incorporate a BRIGHT -- I would suggest a Yellow, but a bright green, red or blue will also work but it does need to definately be BRIGHT and to be almost a solid or a very small print that will look like a very bright solid. You don't need much -- about 1/2 meter -- or for you American readers about a 1/2 yard.
As to technique and ability. This is a traditional design with a bit of a twist. Almost all very straightforward piecing of squares, but if you have not done foundation or paper piecing this is where you can start. There is one element of foundation piecing - fairly simple but to be accurate, this is the best way to add an otherwise "fiddly" detail. Not hard, though!
Now because this is a bit larger project, you will need more fabric, so here are the estimates of what you need:
Border Fabric: optional a medium hue that perhaps refects or co-ordinates with the fabrics in the body of the quilt -- about 2.125 (thats 2 and an eighth) meter ***a hint about the border*** if you like you might consider choosing your border fabric FIRST, then while studying your border fabric, choose your other fabrics from the print that is within your border fabric -- the light, the dark, the medium and the bright elements within the border multiprint.
Background fabric -- either light or dark -- about 2.75 meters
Strong Contrast to Background --in other words, if your background is cream, the strong contrast should be a Navy Blue, Deep Forest Green, Burgundy, etc -- about 1.25 meters
Medium Print -- you will need a total of about 1.25 meters -- you should consider using two different medium prints, both in the same colour family, if you are working in blues, choose two different medium blues, that are very close in value, or perhaps you could go with a true blue along with a aqua, or a rose, with a coral. If you plan to work with scraps, carefully study your scraps, lay them all out together (maybe use a red viewer) or take a photo then look at them, make sure they are all in that similar medium tint or hue even if they are all different colours. These should not break up the view as you look at them together, if one piece is either too light or too dark you should be able to see it pop out of all the others...
Finally you will need to consider your batting and backing -- you will need about 5 meters for your backing -- but again, you can use some large scraps pieced to make a backing. You can purchase a twin, or double size quilt batt of your choice.
I hope that you will follow along with this project -- I am planning to create this quilt to donate to a project that my quilt guild is a part of -- Quilts of Valour -- so I thought today would be a good day to make the announcement of the Mystery Weekend. Quilts of Valour in Canada can be found here .
If you are American there is also a Quilts of Valor page, to be found here .
You have almost 7 weeks to prepare -- and I will remind you about this again in the next few weeks...
