I received a weird email message early last week and, since I was busy, I ignored it. I didn’t open it, thinking that it was spam I could investigate or delete later.

A little while later, I received an email from the BAMQG Retreat Coordinator saying that I should have received my first ‘clue’. Hhmm. I went back to the ‘spam’ message and it still made no sense, but I figured it was the Mystery quilt project, so I downloaded the instructions.

BAMQG is doing a mystery quilt on the retreat. I decided to play along.

I recently read an article about color that included a suggestion about using a large scale print as a background. One reason I decided to do the mystery quilt was because I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. If I was going to do a project that I wasn’t sure about, I didn’t just want to do the same old thing. I picked a wild selection of fabrics. I am not sure they go together and will tend towards ‘pushed neutrals’ or a ‘low volume’ color story.

First, I went rummaging through my Phillip Jacobs and Martha Negley prints. I have been using those mostly for backs so the opportunity to use one on the front made me giddy. I picked English Rose.

I had the dot on my cutting table. It is very close to the green in the English Rose, but it will be fine (famous last words, right?). The text prints are really different. I don’t think I have used many before and they have been on my mind. In they went.

I may add the charcoal circle stitch fabric by Michael Miller as well. We’ll see.

Still, the quilt will be interesting and will be a nice donation quilt, if worse comes to worse.