Meadow Mystery

I completed my Meadow Mystery quilt!  This was a mystery quilt along designed and hosted by the wonderful Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs.  I was lucky enough to meet Cheryl at QuiltCon, but I didn't think to get a picture.

If you've seen other pictures of this highly popular quilt, you know that there is something missing in mine.  See, I wasn't going to do this mystery quilt, because I still have only a finished top from last year's mystery.  But then I went trough my stash and I found fabrics I thought would work and only needed to buy the background fabric.  So I was in!

Except on the very first set of blocks assembled, my fabrics didn't have much contrast.  I knew I would probably have to remake them, but not knowing the rest of the design, I waited.

Yeah, that wasn't going to work.

Once I was done with all the blocks and knew the layout, I went to remake the problematic blocks with a different fabric combination.  But since I used stash, I had very little leftover.  I played around with a few different alternative layouts, but decided that my favorite was the original pattern minus the outside part, which I am calling the secondary pattern.  (It's not a secondary pattern in the traditional sense.) I had *barely* enough background to make it, but since it's a batik with a fair amount of movement, you can't tell that some of the background blocks are pieced.

I wasn't sure how to quilt it until I saw Galaxy by Patty of Elm Street Quilts.  She downsized the pattern to make it smaller and quilted in a spiral.  I loved it!  And imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I copied her!  My spiral is not as tight as Patty's; I did a 2" interval.  I'm really pleased with how it came out.

This was my very first time using Aurifil Thread.  I did their puzzle game at QuiltCon and won a small spool of thread, 28 weight.  I've been wanting to try Aurifil, and the color I picked out of the prize bowl matched quite well. My machine loved it, so I just might end up buying more in the future.  And now I know what all the fuss was about!

I didn't have enough of any of the original fabrics for binding, so I looked for a fabric to use from the vendors at QuiltCon.  I chose a batik that I thought blended well; it came from Wingspan Crafts.

binding

Finishing my Meadow Mystery was my March goal for OMG hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts--yup, same as the inspiration for the quilting!  This was also goal #5 on my list of Q1 goals for the globally hosted finish along.