Allietare Clue #3 - Bonnie Hunter - Mystery Quilt

After a day in the kitchen yesterday and still managing to do a little sewing, I am thrilled for today.  My dear friend, Allison Bayer, is coming over for the day and we are doing clue 3 together.  Come along and peek in on our day.  We won't tell anyone you did, you little peeper you.

We are sharing space in the living room on a six-foot table today.  Why?  Well, because the studio is piled high with batting I need to take care of and it's Christmas time.  Sitting by the tree, listening to Christmas music just sounds wonderful to me right now.

I love that Allison is like me and an early riser.  I got up at 5 and made the dough for bread and cinnamon rolls, cut my strips of gold, and set up the room.  Oh my house already has that wonderful yeasty smell going on.  (For this amazing recipe - click HERE)  Why don't I do this more often?  Allison arrives by 8.  Perfect.  We are soon set up and ready to rock and roll.  First things first --- strip sets.



I am using up LOTS of short little leftover neutral strips from the previous clues AND the strips I cut this morning are from a bunch of samples so they are short already.  Woohoo --- variety coming my way.  Allison and I share strips to give each other a little more variety and I soon have a stack high enough to cut into "twosies",   We take a cinnamon roll break and then move onto turning those "twosies" into beautiful four-patches.  This is a GREAT clue.  I absolutely LOVE four-patches.  Here is Allison's lovely work space.  My own is NEVER as organized and neat.  We have two lovely ladies with us today -- a beautiful shortbed 301 and my Featherweight.  Their sound just makes my heart happy.

It's lunch time and along with our homemade bread, we have a Fresh Tomato Bisque.  (To see how it was made and get the recipe, click HERE.)  We take a wonderful break which makes it sound as though we have been working SOOO hard, but this day is just delightful and laid back.

We are even treated to a rare visit from my friend Lisa Soderlund.  She is a remarkable collage artist and has her two most recent commissions fresh from the frame shop to show us.  All we can say is WOW and how do we get this woman to work with fabric pieces instead of little bits of magazines?  Here is a LINK to her website.  Check it out.  Look what she has to show us today:

Incredible!!  Ya gotta look close cos they are all tiny, tiny bits of different magazine pages.  

 Okay, back to sewing these clue units.  We are getting there.  Allison and I both count and short 12 or 13 units each.  I go back to sewing and she realizes that it is time for her to pack up and head home before the traffic.  Oh thank you, my friend, (and where is the picture of the two of us?) for sharing my day.  Let's do it again real soon.

I finish up my remaining dozen four-patches and take the time to do a little more Christmas decorating.  They come right back off and I get to try my new gadget for the first time.  This was gifted to me at retreat by Shirley and I LOVE it.  In mere seconds, the chain is apart.

A quick press, a run to the studio for larger strips to cut into my bricks, and a few strokes of the rotary blade leaves me with a completed clue.  Woohoo.

Here is Allietare so far.  Please remember to link back to Bonnie's post HERE to keep the fun going and check out all the other blogs.  Now for the countdown to next week.  I can't wait and am already making plans to have a repeat day with Allison.  Yes!

And I am not sure on that top "sewing" brick as a neutral, but it's there cos I love it.  We'll see how it plays later.  The rest of the stack is far more mellow, lol.