You may recall me mentioning awhile back (and on my podcast episode too, I believe) that I'd signed up for the mystery quilt available through Cotton Cuts. I had in my head that I wouldn't get it until the middle of February but it shipped on February 2nd and I got it Monday!
I didn't have anything on my schedule Monday evening and had already planned on spending some time sewing. I confess to some "Squirrel"ing, however, as I really should've been focused on the 9-Patch Pizzazz (aka 9PP). However, I was excited to break open the Cotton Cuts bright pink padded envelope, plus I really don't want to get behind in this thing, so I sat right down and got to it.
As you can see from the photo, the first month included a pattern page, the die-cut pieces, and a little package of doo-dads.
At first glance, I thought the doo-dads were embellishments for the quilt that I'd have to put away and keep track of. Then I realized...wait, they're snackies!
And very tasty, too, especially since I was doing all of this in the hour before dinner. Ahem. They're like little slices of fruity candy-canes. Yum.
Anyway, back to the sewing. This mystery quilt BOM is all pre-cut. All you have to do is follow the directions to put the blocks together. It's about as fool-proof as you can get, although I did still manage to have to do a little reverse sewing a couple of times. I'm rusty. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
They provide this very handy swatch sheet to use. Since there were something like 12 possible colorways, this allows us to all follow the instructions easily. They only send this swatch sheet once, though, so they warn you to make sure to keep track of it.
I chose the Portofino colorway, which makes me #teamportofino. Woo--I'm on a team! I love these colors even more in person than when I chose them on the website. This is going to be so bright and cheery.
And here are my finished blocks for month 1.
All in, it probably took me about an hour, including the reverse sewing. I had to unstitch one set of half-square triangles because the stacks of fabric pieces were obviously packaged "as-is" from when they were die-cut. In other words, each stack had one piece right-side up followed by the next piece wrong-side up, then right-side up, wrong-side up, etc. I noticed it on the print fabrics right away as they're really obvious which side is which. I had already sewn one of the background pieces in wrong-side up, though, before catching myself. It's a tone-on-tone and not as obvious...until you do it wrong. The other unstitching was just because I didn't like the way one of my long strips had gone on. I knew I could do better.
Boy, it felt good to get one "assignment" for the month done. And this one wasn't even on my list! Now it's back to the 9PP.