THE STORY

In Fall 2012, my mother was diagnosed with Leukemia.  My family and I were living in Los Angeles.  I originally went to attend UCLA in 1995 and never returned  – at least never to stay.  During that time I traveled back and forth to spend time with her and help out where I could.  There was a lot of down time and I found myself missing my hubby and kids.  To help with my loneliness, I started listening to quilting podcasts and one of the first ones I enjoyed was Katie’s Quilting Corner.  It was during one of her podcasts that she mentioned Bonnie Hunter and her 2012 Annual Mystery Quilt.  I checked it out and jumped on the bandwagon.  I had never done a mystery quilt, let alone a scrappy quilt, let alone something from the online community.  It was a first in many ways.  I didn’t have much of a stash with me or any of the fabric in her palette so I bought my fabric based on her color choices.  I had a hard time keeping up with each of the steps and by the time the last step was posted I was still on step 3 (or something like that).  I did as much as I could with the time I had.  Then there was a long hiatus as I had all my sewing stuff in Northern CA but I was in Southern CA getting everything packed and ready to move up North.  I didn’t return to Easy Street until July after we had moved in to my mom’s home and we settled in.  Since then I’ve slowly worked through each of the steps. Below is a timeline of updates as I posted where I was at a given time.  I have to say though while I was working on this quilt I didn’t really enjoy it.  I didn’t enjoy the color selections.  I loved each of the colors individually except lime green and thought that I would love them all together.  However the colors I loved were a small part of the quilt while the one color I didn’t like (lime green) was all over the quilt.  I also didn’t like not knowing what was coming and I would have done things a little different had I known how it would turn out.  I didn’t like mystery quilts while working on this project.  I’m a bit of a control freak as it is and to now know how this quilt was going to look at the beginning was very scary for me.  I thought I would enjoy the process more but I didn’t.  And then I didn’t like scrappy.  I can’t tell you why – I just didn’t like it.  I say all this but somewhere along the way – I started enjoying it.  I cannot tell you where.  Now I want to do this year’s mystery quilt.  My goal is to finish quilting Easy Street before the next one.  I think once I started seeing my pieces put together and the pattern come out I started liking what I saw.  I saw what it was going to look like at the big reveal but it’s not the same as when I started seeing what mine was going to look like.

Update as of 8/18/13

I know I need to add pictures and a story and I will at some point. But for now – I’m working on step 8. The goal was to finish step 8 this month but as with the others I’m not sure if it can be done. I’ve spent the last week working on the first part of step 8 – putting together the first block and IT IS TAKING FOREVER! There are so many pieces and last night I just had to stop because I had to use my seam ripper three times! So, we’ll see how far I get!

Update as of 8/31/13

Update as of 9/8/13

I’ve got all the blocks sewed in rows and now I’ve just got to get the rows sewed to finish that up. I’m planning on putting a little border just to set it off a bit. I was planning on quilting this on the long arm but I may just quilt it on my little Bernina. I think straight quilting would be fine since the quilt itself is so busy. Especially since it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to actually get certified on the Long Arm until November and then I will still need to practice. I really want this one done this year and if I stick with the long arm idea, I do not think that that is going to happen.

As of 9/18/13

All of the blocks are pieced together. I need to add the borders. I’m going to do a dark purple 1.5″ trim and then a 3″ turquoise blue border and once it is all quilted, finish it off with another dark purple binding.

As of 9/22/13

Borders are done!  I’m prepping the backing now.  I’m not sure if that will be done this weekend but if anything I cannot baste until the weekend of 10/5 so I have plenty time to get the back done.  I’m thinking of spray basting so I’m going to be figuring that out.  I thread basted the hand quilt and pin basted Jacob’s and Kayla’s quilts.  I’m not sure if spray basting is easier but I do not have a good place to pin baste right now so rather than get hung up on trying to find a place to pin baste I think I’m just going to try spray basting.

As of 10/13/13 –

I’m still not done with the back.  I basically am using all the leftover pieces of fabric and putting it all into a back.  Half of it is done.  I’ve been so consumed with my secret project that I haven’t been able to get this done.  This project is 4th in my list of things I can work on so.. we’ll see how far I get this month.

As of January, 2014

The back is done. It was done in October or November.  I actually started quilting is.  Then Celtic Solstice started late November 2013 and I had to take it out of the machine to make room for Bonnie Hunter’s 2013 Mystery Quilt.  I haven’t had a chance to put it back in since.

Finished July, 2014

I still need to get a picture on here and I will at some point.  I stopped the quilting process during Q1 2014 on this quilt just because I got consumed with Celtic Solstice and life.  But started back up in Q2 2014. I finished quilting it in May 2014 and just needed to get the binding and label done.  It took me 2 months to finish the binding and at the end, I just popped it in my sewing machine and finished it up.  My son, took Easy Street for himself because his old quilt was the quilt I made him as a toddler and it is now too small for him.