Packing in the Peaks Fun – Peaks 5 – Day 2

Day Two at Peaks started with a buzz in the air. I’d been tormenting these ladies for weeks now leading up to Peaks because the theme project this time was a mystery quilt. I have seen many mystery quilts over the years and most of them require a bazillion pieces or such a mixture of fabrics that they give me heart palpations when I think of doing them. I thought that there might be others with the same anxiety so I decided to try an uncomplicated version. Not finding a pattern that I liked that was already a mystery, I did the organisation of this backwards. I came across a pattern that reminded me of another quilt that I’d had hair-tearing moments with. However, this one had a MUCH more simple construction with a similar effect. It seemed like something that would work well with many different fabrics and it had simple steps so I thought we’d give it a go. It took quite a bit of work to create instructions for multiple sizes from the basics given but in the end, with some pattern tester help, it was done.

Miss F’s baggie for her Mystery Bits – Not happy 🙂

I was thrilled that everyone seemed keen.

Well, almost no one moaned about it.  🙂

Miss P

I’d given everyone the instructions for Part 1 & 3, along with some loose guidelines. Part 2 was to come at Peaks. They were all starting out so different. This was going to be fun!

Miss F

Miss J

Miss H

After breakfast was cleared, it was time to show the ladies the plan. After a bit of teasing, showing just the back

A vintage sheet and Quilters Dream Wool batting

I turned it round to reveal

Peaks 5 Mystery Quilt Revealed – Breezeway
Mystery Quilt from Peaks 5
Hanging in the hallway of Chalet 4 Vents

Instructions for Part 2 were distributed & everyone got busy.  The morning went by quickly with things starting to take shape

Miss R, me & Miss J
Miss H’s N°2 quilt
Miss B & her quilt top in progress
Miss K getting caught up
Miss F’s coming together
Miss JC learning on the fly
Miss H’s N°1 quilt blocks
Miss J with pedal to the floor! 🙂
Miss L’s Butterflies in Motion
Miss R zipping along
Miss L’s Olives ready to add the next segments

and before we knew it, the table was being laid for lunch. Yep, they had all that done BEFORE lunch. Wow. 🙂

Soup starter
Quiche & pasta salad

There were nail services being offered in the afternoon but most of the ladies were heads down, machines whirring madly, making huge progress on their mystery quilts. It wasn’t much longer and we started seeing these

Miss P & her space quilt top – FINISHED!
Miss JC’s top coming together on the design wall!
Miss L adding colour to her Olives

Photo Girl Faith also put down the camera for a few minutes to work on her own project. I was helping with pinning and pressing. I suppose that’s how mums find themselves become Pressing Fairies for their daughters, happy to share the moment.

Faith working on her own quilt
Faith & her Quilting Fairy mum

Dinner was as scrumptious as last night

Yummy again!

But a big cheer when up when dessert was delivered

STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING!!

If you’ve never had sticky toffee pudding, put it on your list to try. Think warm, dense, soft cake swimming in caramel. We were licking our fingers after wiping the plate.

OK, that might have just been me. 🙂

After washing up sticky fingers, we carried on with the Mystery theme to do the Scrap Attack Mystery project with Quilt Fairy Gina. They were going to make faux cathedral window mats like these

Faux Cathedral window mats using canvas & Aurifil!!
Closeup of variegated Aurifil

Using some nifty new tools,

Demo with the Olfa circular cutter

everyone was encouraged to jump into my Scrap Boxes that were on hand to pull out some coordinating fabrics for their choice in canvas cloth.

Scrap Box Diving

Armed with the bits, people set out to create a faux cathedral window mini quilted mat. It was a great opportunity to use some of the more decorative stitches on our machines. Totally thrilled to get to use some of the variegated Aurifil lovelies!

Miss H’s mat in progress
Miss J’s vibrant mat
Miss Ls vibrant mat
Miss P’s pastel contrast mat

The ladies work well into the night again. It was so nice to see how the quilts were developing. The modified pattern worked very well, making a nicely sized small quilt as well as the bigger ones. The largest version anyone was doing turned out to be one to fit a single sized bed but it still went together very quickly. This was the first complete finish, including hand & machine quilting, as well as embroidery.

Miss B’s lovely finish!

Peaks all the way!

Whew.

Yes, I’d say it’s been another great day at Peaks. 🙂

More soon on Day 3.

If you want to make your own version of the mystery quilt, the pattern name is Breezeway, by Pine Tree Country Quilts, that can be found in the Quilt Trends magazine, Summer 2013, (available online here).  I expanded the instructions to include five sizes (wallhanging/baby, throw, single, queen, & king), but it was not a mystery quilt. I created that complication all by myself. 🙂

To see Day 1, click here 
To see Day 3, click here 
To see Day 4, click here

Happy Quilting!!