September Mysteries and Quilt Alongs September 2025

Sorry I am so late getting this posted.  I just forgot about it and kept postponing.  Maybe one of these events will interest you. I'll have October's out around Oct. 2nd. 

Let’s start with Autumn Nights presented by the Fat Quarter Shop. It’s a small mystery quilt that is 31” by 32”.  Get all the details here: https://www.fatquartershop.com/sew-alongs/autumn-nights-mystery-quilt-and-stitch-along?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=sqal-autumn-nights-2025  All the clues/patterns are now available.  Check for videos for each clue on Fat Quarter Shop's You Tube Channel. There is a counted cross stitch version also available. 

I’m always amazed that new web sites with mysteries or sew alongs pop up when I do a search. The web site is called Mystery Quilts Anonymous. The current mystery is called Bear Hugs — the link takes you to info on quite a few mysteries. https://mysteryquiltsanonymous.com/current-mysteries/ .   I haven’t found specifics in terms of number of clues, start or finish dates. And, I realize that there are several other mysteries available if you are interested. I clicked on one of the Bear Hug clues and found a list of tags. From there I clicked on mysteries. That open a series of pages showing quite a few other pages of mysteries.  (If you get to the home page instead of the mysteries page look across the top and click on Free Mysteries.) Surprise -- There is a new mystery called Focal Point. Click on the title of the mystery you want to see. Once on the new page you have to scroll through all the info in the small box. Just click "Download" to transfer the page to your computer.

Here’s another smaller mystery quilt.  Love Sew is presenting this 24.5” x 24.5” top.  Here’s the link to the clues.  https://love-sew.com/pages/mystery-sew-along-week-3? No idea how many clues will be coming out. I bet most of us have enough fabric stash to make this one without buying anything new!

Monday Meanderings 9 - 22 - 2025

What a week. I seemed to be blah about quilting although I got a charity quilt done for the local guild.  One day I mostly read a book. (More about it at the end.) We've had some rain so most grass in the neighborhood is looking much better.  And I volunteered to make name tags for the Spotsylvanians...I'm still working on that and it needs to be done by tomorrow! But first let's see how I did on my goals this week. 

9/15/25 

✅Cut, prepare, and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin — well, the binding is made but not folded or sewn on. 

✅Sew binding on baby quilt — done! 

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt — oops, nothing done. 

Keep making 9 patch blocks and/or RSC blocks — actually I did get a two 9 patches done but nothing else. 

✅Quilt two quilts (not mine… sigh.) — one was done and returned.  

Not so many goals completed this week.  But here are a few pictures of what I did accomplished this week.

I decided to use the black to light grey ombre for the binding.  I was able to cut and sew the strips together.  Here it is over the backing fabric, a wide back pink ombre. I'll be folding, ironing and sewing it on this week.  I'll be sewing this on one side and then hand stitch it down. ARGH -- I hate hand sewing binding down.  But I'm planning to on this one so I can make sure all the points on the edges are showing, not cut off. Plus Sharon talked me into it. 

I did get one top quilted for Virginia Star Quilt Guild.  I thought it was a small one. Um, no. It was a big one.  Here it is after it was quilted. I believe the piecing of the scraps was done on adding machine tape. 

You should be able to click on the picture and enlarge it. The quilting design is Quick and Easy Swirls by My Creative Stitches. In all those little fabric pieces I found at least two that I had or have. 

Here's what I hope to finish this week.  

9/22/25

Prepare and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt

Make two more potato chip blocks for RSC

Try making one section of paper pieced tall tree

Attend a grand’s soccer game

I thought I'd share the tall tree pattern picture so you know what I'm tackling this week.  I haven't decided if I can actually make this while on retreat. So, I'll cut out the pieces based on the sizes given and then see whether it is fairly easy to piece.  I'm not holding my breath that this will be super easy.  The pattern is called Tall Trim the Tree and is designed by Cindi Edgerton. Unfortunately she has retired. You might still be able to find her patterns but the supply is limited.  The various "ornaments" are from a different pattern which I don't have so I may not be making them.  Although, I'm sure I can make a few 3" or 4" blocks to add to the tree if I decide I want them.  I'm happy to note the top section has a very limited number of pieces... I should be able to put 5 pieces together, right? 

So here are a couple of things I did this week that were off list. 

Sharon and I FaceTimed and got block 9 done of the Cali & Co mystery quilt by Coriander Quilts. Sorry that the lighting isn't even on this picture. For some reason the left light isn't as good as the right light. (yep, 2 lamps shine on this block -- actually most of my indoor pictures have 2 lamps shining on them.)

Only three more blocks to make until the final reveal. Hum, I don't think there will be anything but putting the blocks together.  But I could be wrong. We'll see in December. 

And here are the 9 blocks all together.  I need to pay better attention to the colors I use on corner triangles over the next three months.  Seems like I have a lot of the same colors which might make it hard to place the blocks in the final layout. 

I think I've cut out all of the Economy blocks I'll need.  So over this week I made 3 of them to add to the 2 already done. Hopefully I've cut enough medium color blocks so the quilt won't look too dark overall. 

Somehow I was able to continue my stitching streak for 15 Minutes to Stitch.  Here are the details. 

W/ending 9/21/25. 264 days of 2025

• 15 minute days/September 21/21
• 15 minute days/2024 = 264/264 days
• Success rate = 100%

Have fun reading blogs this week.  Don't forget to visit these Linky Parties. 

Life in Pieces

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

The book I spent all day reading and finishing was Elinore Lipman's newest. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was a hoot. Once I started reading I didn't want to put it down. It was a light, fun read. Here's my library's description: 

"Taking over her parents’ estate-sale business is not the life’s work that Emma Lewis bargained for. Yes, she grew up helping them empty people’s nests, but nothing prepared her for her biggest and stickiest “get”--the grand, beautiful house of ill repute masquerading as a decidedly beddable B and B. Should Emma turn down potential clients in need of decluttering just because they are shady, escort-y, and proud of it?

No. A girl must make a living.

Around some hairpin turns Lipman ingeniously reveals a straight shot to happiness."

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 9 - 15 - 2025

Here we are in the middle of September. What? September? It's still in the 80s where I live. It's getting dark earlier and the humidity isn't as bad as it is in the middle of summer. I enjoy taking Sunny for walks in the evening but for the most part I hang out in my basement studio. This week I read or listened to 3 books.  Nothing spectacular but entertaining. Now, on the quilting side of things... not a lot of check marks. But that is fine with me because the main checkmark is a finish (of sorts) that has been waiting for a year to be worked on. See below. 

9/8/25

✅Load and ✅start quilting Ombré quilt - Whoopie!  Quilting is done! 

Make RSC blocks in light blue and light green and more 9 patch blocks — cut out a couple of 9 patches but nothing else. 

✅Cut out more Sept UFO challenge- Economy blocks — just need 5 more.

Continue cutting out the Magnificent Mystery quilt— nothing done. 

Bind baby quilt — trimmed quilt, cut out binding but nothing else done. 

I finished my super queen size Ombre top last year.  I love/d how it looks. I bought the backing for it in MI last July.  It sat in the laundry room waiting for me to wash it. Surprise, a few weeks ago I washed it. It sat in the studio waiting to be ironed for several weeks. I finally decided I really need to get it finished in September cause I need to be able to show more fabric usage. (I went wild buying fabric this quarter!) Happily enough, I did the ironing, I loaded the backing and the batting and the quilt top (which also needed ironing). Saturday I started quilting it. My thought was I'd get it done later this week. But, I was ready to get'er done. I got several rows done Saturday and the rest done on Sunday.  It is quilted! 

Darn, you can't see the quilting.  Here's the E2E I used so you can see it clearly.  I love how it turned out. It's called Briar Rose in Winter and is a computerized Edge-to-Edge pattern. The pattern is available at My Creative Stitches. And yes, I've used it a few times. Below you can read some of the statistics and why I really wasn't looking forward to doing this big quilt. 

So it took approximately 23 minutes for each of 9 rows. So total actual stitching time was 3 hours and 43 minutes. (Which doesn't count the bobbin winding time, the time to load this big quilt, time moving the quilt forward after each row, and the time I had to rip out one/tenth of the row.) There were 166,140 stitches in the quilt (including the small section I had to rip out.) That is equal to 459 yards of thread.  One of my jumbo bobbins could only do 2 rows before running too low to start another row.  

So, I now have 5 bobbins with just small amounts of thread on them. (And, no empty bobbins!) Hopefully the next quilt I do will be much smaller and use white thread! There is more than enough thread if I do, say, a 36" wide quilt.  These small amounts would probably last for the whole row.  I do have one bobbin with not very much thread on it so I could unwind it if my next quilt isn't with white thread! 

I realized last week I left off the picture of the Economy blocks that are ready to sew.  This is last week's photo. If I had taken a pic this week about 4 of the fabrics would be sets now. I'm definitely going for fall colors.

As you can see I got a little bit of one other project done. I prepped some blocks to sew and I got the binding cut and pinned together for the baby quilt. Now that I think on it a bit -- I also worked on another knit hat and spent one evening working on my cross stitch bag. (You can see it here although I've done more since this picture.)  I really have to concentrate to get this one done correctly.  (And honestly, I haven't been as accurate as I should be but I think in the end it will look fine.) 

Here's what I'll be working on this week. 

9/15/25 

Cut, prepare, and sew  binding on Ombre Log Cabin 

Sew binding on baby quilt 

Continue cutting out Magnificent Mystery Quilt 

Keep making 9 patch blocks and/or RSC blocks

Quilt two quilts (not mine… sigh.) 

Quilt  a little doll quilt on my domestic machine to give to the guild

That should keep me busy this week. And, all my choral groups have gone back so that is taking up some time too.  Maybe I'll get even more done this week but I'm not holding my breath. 

Here's my 15 Minutes of Stitching report.

W/ending 9/14/25. 257 days of 2025

• 15 minute days Sept = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2025 = 257/257 days
• Success rate = 100%

Not much more to report from here.  Sunny is thriving and stubborn.  She likes to play with her balls but also tends to put them under the couch which means she can't actually get to them without some help.  Sigh. 

Please spend some time checking out these Linky parties.  Hopefully it won't take me until the end of the week to link up to the bottom two parties.  

Stitching Stuff

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

Hope everyone is finding peace in their quilting this week.  I always appreciate it when the outside world has gotten intolerable.  It's cheaper than therapy...maybe! 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie

Monday Meanderings 9 - 8 - 2025

As of Sunday we are 250 days into 2025. Wow -- this year is flying.  We've enjoyed the cooler weather but we sure could use some rain.  We got some rain but not enough. Hopefully we'll get more over the next month or so.  I did make some good progress this month.  Here are last week's goals. 

9/1/25

✅Put borders on Soho 3yd quilt from July retreat — done! 

✅Quilt another top — quilted a small baby quilt. 

✅Cut a top for October retreat — started cutting more Economy blocks 

√Clear off right side of design wall — some things have been removed but not all.

✅Begin cutting fabric for Magnificent Mystery Quilt from Meadow Mist Designs — the first two fabrics are done. (Minus one 2.5” square. I’ll do it tomorrow or the next day.)

This is Soho, a Fabric Cafe 3 yard quilt.  I changed it a little as I didn't have a yard of beige.  So I used one fabric for the half square triangles. I bought another fabric for the borders which I did with only one fabric rather than an inner and outer border. I'll probably use some of the beige border fabric for the backing.  

For the next quilt kit I chose to use the September UFO Challenge project.  Several years ago I made an economy block quilt and cut some extra pieces for it. This week I cut the background fabrics for all the pieces I had already cut out.  Then I pulled a bunch of additional fabrics so I could make a bigger quilt. First the finished blocks. (Yep, just 2!) 

Here are the cut pieces and a bunch of fabrics that still need to be cut. I'm using dies from my 9" Accuquilt Cube. Any cube will allow you to make an Economy block using dies # 1, 3, and 4. The triangle die for the light fabric uses a too much fabric so I'm considering figuring out the correct size and cutting them myself.  I'll keep you informed if it works.  

I did make some progress on clearing off the side of my design wall.  I forgot to take a before picture so I found one from awhile ago.  Here are the two ... 

   So, argh -- I wish I had more control of my photos!  Anyway, the left is a while ago and the right is showing I've made some progress. I moved several orphan blocks and some excess papers.  Obviously there is some more work to do. With perseverance I should be able to remove and put all of this stuff away. (Or throw it away.) 

I did get a start on cutting out the Magnificent Mystery quilt. Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs starts her mystery quilt in the summer. She gives cutting directions for the entire quilt early on. If you cut it all at the beginning it makes it easier to make each clue as all that is needed is sewing.  I've enjoyed that part so I do all the cutting at the beginning. I will continue working on the cutting this coming week. 

Here's my plan for this week. 

9/8/25

Load and start quilting Ombré quilt

Make RSC blocks in light blue and light green and more 9 patch blocks

Cut out more Sept UFO challenge- Economy blocks

Continue cutting out the Magnificent Mystery quilt

Bind baby quilt 

I had another 100% sewing week. 

W/ending 9/7/25. 250 days of 2025

• 15 minute days Sept = 7/7
• 15 minute days/2025 = 250/250 days
• Success rate = 100%

I hope you can spend some time checking out some of the Linky parties -- don't you want to get some new ideas? (Ok, so I get way too many ideas every week and have enough of my own ideas but I still get excited about what I see each week.) 

Life in Pieces

Oh Scrap

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings

I'll leave you with this wonderful picture I took while walking this week. Yep that's hubby with Sunny. I stopped to get the picture. 

We didn't get the rain but we got this huge rainbow.  For a short while there was a double on the left hand side but that picture wasn't very good.  

Happy quilting all -- Bonnie