Halloween Mini-Mystery Quilt

Normally I avoid mystery quilts. I have so many projects I want to do, some large scale, why introduce an unknown distraction? Plus, I like to plan how my quilts are going to look in advance. That being said, I still joined on online group to make a mini-mystery quilt for Halloween because it had several features that appealed and countermanded my pre-conceived objections.

• unique technique
• definite goal / specific theme  – not a total mystery
• guidance on colors in term of light/medium/dark – again, not a total mystery
• small (¾ yard background piece, 6 fat quarters, 1 piece less than fat quarter)
• short duration – clues came out every Tuesday and Friday for 4 weeks

This mystery quilt was sponsored Annette Ornelas of Southwind Designs. Her signature style, as illustrated in her book Peeled-Back Patchwork: Curves without Piecing, has hooked me with it uniqueness so my curiosity was aroused. Annette gave suggestions for color choices for this mini-mystery –  Background, Black, Grey, White/light grey, Dark, Purple, Orange, and Green – alleviating my concern about utter randomness. Most of the required fabric quantities were fat quarters that could easily be gathered from my stash.  My picks are shown in the next photo. I specifically avoided halloween print fabrics and I decided to hold off for a while to pick the setting fabric between the blocks. Maybe that will be a print. Am I cheating to wait, or merely reluctant to give up total control?

There are four mystery blocks delivered at two clues per week in my in box. I can only guess at what they might be.

BAT: Clues #1 (9/21/21) and #2 (9/24/21)

That mottled background makes me think my bat is flying back home in the rosy/gray dawn twilight through a cloud cover. Those peeled back curves really are a nice added detail. They are the technique that coaxed me to join. The unfinished block measures 9½" square. I anxiously waited for the following week's two clues. Would it be a cat, a pumpkin, a witch...?

WITCH HAT: Clues #3 (9/28/21) and #4 (10/1/21)

One of our instructed fabric choices was medium and I picked the textured medium grey. That choice worked out well. The seams are barely visible and it picks up the grey in the mottled background. I initially did the peeled back curves in the same neutral cream thread that I'd used for piecing. I am glad I made the effort to pick them out on the medium grey fabric and dark blue fabric to resew each of them with a matching thread. I definitely like the contoured feeling the curves add and the contrasting thread was distracting.

JACK O' LANTERN: Clues #5 (10/5/21) and #6 (10/8/21)

I knew orange had to come up sooner or later! I usually make my quilts with prints but often thought quilts with solids look crisper. I decided to use textured solids in this mystery as an experiment. My purple and orange fabric choices, have no texture at all, as a non-print extreme. Frankly, the solid orange looks a bit flat to my taste, but I am glad I at least gave it a shot on something small. I do love his curvy, quirky grin, though. This block did not take long so I can always do another with a braver fabric. And I am glad I picked a textured blue for my dark option instead of a black print. I still need to use my purple and my white/light gray. I wonder what the fourth block will be? Hmm..maybe I will sub out the dark blue stem for bright green like in the witch hat...?

CAT: Clues #7 (10/12/21) and #8 (10/15/21)

I knew purple had to come up sooner or later! I used it as the contrast color for a black cat on one ear, the paw and the tail. There is not as much contrast as I would like but that is one of the drawbacks of a mystery selection of colors. My colors all do blend, but as a whole they are rather subtle. 

Here are all four blocks so far. I can spice it all up by picking a bright sashing fabric but then I am concerned that it will detract from the blocks. I know. I am overthinking it. There is a bonus block yet to be released and my guess it that it will use gray... also a subtle hue. Maybe I should start thinking in terms of a misty, foggy, spooky, Halloween night.

GHOST: Clues #9 (10/19/21) and #10 (10/22/21)... a bonus block!

Aha! Finally a use for the gray! It does show up with my selected background even though the contrast is not extreme.

LAYOUT:
I could have made a square wall hanging with four blocks only; but then what would I do with the fifth bonus block? Using five blocks I could add four blocks of a Halloween themed fabric in a checkerboard arrangement for an even larger square wall hanging. That would have meant more area for a backing and more area to FMQ. I wanted to keep this project, small, compact, complete and mainly function for a technique and pattern expansion. I chose to string all five in a row horizontally to be used as a table runner or a banner over a doorway. To spice up the subtleness of the background, I separated the blocks with ½" wide sashing, wide enough to add a splash of color but narrow enough not to steal the attention away from the pieced blocks but rather showcase them. To satisfy my yen for brightness, I added two orange/purple, and purple/orange polka dots borders in 1" and 2" widths respectively.

BACKING:

My selected fabric does not have a Halloween theme but the saturated colors matched the block images so well with the deep blue, purple, orange, and lime green that I used it. It is one yard of a horse fabric by Laurel Birch that I was saving because I love it so much.

QUILTING AND BINDING

After spray basting, I quilted parallel horizontal lines in the blocks in a neutral cream thread, breaking the stitch lines so as not to cross the lime green dividers. I also kept a neutral cream thread for the bobbin thread even though the backing was dark. I did not want to risk some random dots of dark popping up to the front if the my thread tension wavered a bit. Surprisingly, the light cream did make for an interesting pattern on the back; I can see this being used as a table runner on the horse side, also. After considering wishbones or a piano border pattern in the polka dots, I chose to stop at stitch in the ditch only so that the border quilting was not a distraction. 

For the binding I merely trimmed, then wrapped, the backing fabric around to the front, folding it over, and stitching it down so it was only ¼" wide. After all it did have all those colors. Being finished was more important to me at this point than being fancy. Last night, when I finished it, was, after all, the day after Halloween. The completed banner measures 53"x16". It was a very fun, focused, mystery challenge and I succeeded in NOT creating another UFO!