Resistance Is Futile

I love a good mystery.  Always have, going back to when I was a kid & couldn't get enough of Nancy Drew, and now with a good John Grisham thriller.  Combine my love of mysteries with quilting?  Heaven!  But I don't trust just anybody with a mystery quilt.  Bonnie Hunter runs a free mystery every fall through her blog (Easy Street tab at the top, or others under Mystery Quilts tab), and I've never been disappointed with how they come out.  How can I resist?

We got home Sunday afternoon from a wonderful Thanksgiving with my side of the family.  I printed out the Easy Street part 1 directions from my Mom & Dad's house.  My fabrics weren't pulled yet, but I had bought a fun hot pink "constant" and washed it, and decided that my other colors would be the same as Bonnie's.  I started last year's mystery, Orca Bay, over the summer as leaders & enders.  I'm using white on black for the background there, and since I can't seem to stop collecting them I knew I'd have plenty for this mystery, too.

The first thing I needed to do with my sewing time (which started within an hour of getting back in town - could have been shorter if I hadn't needed to make a quick grocery run!) was add the borders to my Minglewood BOM shop sample.  It's a big quilt, so that took a while.  I can't get it all in one pic from home, so here's a preview:

I'll take another pic once it's displayed at the shop.  I'm so excited the top is done!  Eula at the shop is going to quilt it for me.  I think it deserves fancy custom quilting and I just don't feel like doing that much these days.  Metallic thread is also something it might need, and my machine and I haven't had any luck with that in the past.  So it will hang at the shop as a top until my turn comes up with Eula.

But back to the mystery!  My reward for finishing the Minglewood top was starting Easy Street and spending some dedicated time on Orca Bay step 1.

These are my fabs, now pulled and ready!  Everything is stash except the hot pink constant.

Now that I see it in the pic, I think the top lime green isn't hot enough, so it might get the boot.  But it has purple and turquoise in it, so I'll keep it out for now just in case it will work when I see how it's used. 

No finished 4-p's (four-patches) from step 1 to show yet, but I have over half of the strip sets sewn.

After I took this pic I pressed the strips and now they're ready to sub-cut.

And Orca Bay is progressing!

This is 142 qst's (quarter-square triangles).  82 more to go, and I have a bunch cut and some pairs sewn toward that end.

Finally, while I haven't been faithful to an hour a day of "Sewing with Bonnie" handwork, I haven't abandoned my Vintage Tin embroidery either.  Here's the current block.  The BOM has now started at the shop so I need to get back at it if I want to stay ahead of the BOM participants!

 If you look closely at the pic below, you can see that I've got about half of this block done.

Are you keeping up with an hour a day of hand sewing?  How about Easy Street?  Are you jumping on the bus to Easy Street?  See the other blog posts of participants linking up with Bonnie here.

Thanks for stopping by!
Nan