Brown Bag Mystery Quilt 2021- Double the Fun

 In 2021 I joined Karen Montgomery's Brown Bag Mystery quilt along. Karen will design an exclusive pattern and get with shops that participated in Sewposium in February to sell the bags. In the bags, your fabric is chosen but usually, they give you a hint at one of the fabrics. I joined through The Fiberology Lab. Then during Spring, the clues are sent out once a week. I am a bit of a procrastinator and did manage to finish piecing mine in Sept of 2021, but realized I never shared. My bag was black and white with a pop of color. I am very happy with my results. I do have borders to put on and quilting to do. It has joined the pile of quilts I need to quilt.

Tea Time!

This one is from a subscription service I had enrolled in for a short period of time called Plum Deluxe. I got these lovely teas from my monthly box in May. The French Tart Black Tea was very good. It was made for the box and seasonal, so you won't find it on the site but they have other wonderful teas to choose from.

Quarentine Stash buster

Fabric Selection

My local quilt shop has decided to do a stash diving mystery quilt. Since most quilters have a bit of stash built up it's easy to pull from and gives us something to share. You can find the clues on The Fiberology Lab's Youtube page if you want to join along. The current quilt is pretty simple so far, but we still have two more clues to go. I don't think she's going to do anything complicated to make it easily accessible for all sewing levels.

Latest units.

The first clue was fabric choices along with cutting instructions. I started with a batik jelly roll I had purchased recently and a couple of solids. I chose a dark blue background and a dark grey contrast. There is a lot of tonal difference between them and the strips, but I'm interested in what the final outcome is going to be.

Fabric Selection for the next mystery quilt.

Go watch the videos and play along. She's going to be doing a second stash diving mystery quilt next week. I got the fabric requirements for that one and got them ready to begin.

Tea today is actually a walk down memory lane. Over 10 years ago I stumbled into a tea room/ gastropub in Mobile Alabama. I don't even remember the name right now, but I had never been a tea room and it looked interesting. I was on vacation with my friends and they usually go along with my suggestions. I've been told I'm good at finding fun unique places. This one was near the university and it was my first experience with English high tea. I loved it so much, it made me want to look into more tea rooms after that. Now I've always been a tea lover but I think the experience made me obsessed.

Mystery Quilts!

I've been working on two mystery quilts. One is a block of the month quilt Murder Mystery. I've already posted a small blurb about this one in my 2020 Projects post. It's been interesting to go blind into this quilting process. We were given a color list to start so we can choose our fabrics and have no clue what we're doing. This month's block used a skill I can say I don't like but can do with medium success. Curve piecing. The name of the block is Desert Flower and we make three of the blocks. The last two we made only one of that block and of course the one thing I am not fond of I have to make multiple. All complaining aside, the practice is good for me in skill-building and I think the block looks pretty.

The other was an international mystery quilt series by Fiberology Lab. This place is truly my home shop. Sometimes I feel like I'm there as much as at home. She's doing this like a quilt club that you can choose to participate by buying the kit.

Each meeting she goes over techniques and ideas for this month's quilt pattern. The kits are all precut, and you're given some scraps to go with it for extra bits. She also included recipes with the pattern.We talk about what was done from last month if you came or if you just had something to share. The quilts are small throw or baby quilt sizes and make great gifts.

I participated in February and got a kit for Italy in pinks and purples. It's a snowball block that represents meatballs. I'm hungry thinking about spaghetti and meatballs now. I have most of the blocks done and sewin into strips. No photo of that, but I will be done soon.

Tea for today a shot of the table at a ladies tea event I went to. My co-worker sponsors a table at her church's even. It's usually a fun social event combined with the church's fund-raiser. Last year was her first year and didn't know she could bring fancy cups. I loaned her some of mine for the table and I think she did a great job decorating. Snow had hit that morning and half the people couldn't come. The guest speaker included, but we still had a good time. She had picked up several different flavors. She found a Moringa Tea and I tried it. I can't say I'm a fan. It had a bit of a grassy flavor. I don't plan on getting any more, but I'm glad I experienced something new.