Mystery Quilt Alongs: My Journey with Bonnie Hunter

Hello Friends and Welcome!

Last Friday, Bonnie Hunter released the first step in her 2024 Winter mystery quilt; Old Town. After participating in her last two mystery quilt alongs, I'm really excited to be getting started on another new pattern!

Despite loving these patterns and the community that has built up around the annual quilt along, I've actually never finished one of these quilts. So in honour of starting a new one, I wanted to take a look back at the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilts I've worked on so far!

My Introduction to Bonnie Hunter

Bonnie Hunter is an internationally known quilt maker and pattern designer who shares her love of scrap quilts on her blog; Quiltville.

I was first introduced to her through my quilt guild, where other members would share quilts made from her patterns at show and share. I was still in school at that time, and though I was too busy to get involved in any of her challenges or quilt alongs, I began to recognize her name.

After graduating in 2019, I moved away from my guild and wasn't able to attend meetings for some time, though I remained a member. COVID related closures caused my guild to go virtual in 2020, bringing me back in touch!

In November 2022, a member brought her finished Rhododendron Trail quilt in for show and share. That quilt had been made from Bonnie Hunter's most recent mystery quilt pattern, and the member who made it finished her quilt just in time to encourage the rest of us to participate in the 2022 mystery quilt along!

I was persuaded.

2022 Mystery Quilt; Chilhowie

The first Bonnie Hunter quilt along I participated in was Chilhowie.

Though it was my first time making a Bonnie Hunter pattern, I decided to made a change to the colour requirements to make my quilt unique!

The pattern originally called for four unique colours; a neutral background with violet, orange, and light blue accents. Instead of using four colours, I decided to try using just three; violet for the background, and white and pale green for the accents.

As I was piecing my units, I consistently used violet as my background colour, placed white in the position of the darkest accent colour, and used green as the renaming accent.

Halfway through the quilt along, I fell behind, and when I picked it up again, the final quilt layout had been revealed and I had the opportunity to start making informed changes!

After laying out all my blocks and deciding what I wanted to change and what I would keep the same, I started quilting and assembling my quilt using the quilt as you go method.

I assembled half of the quilt before setting the project aside to focus on something else.

Looking back at this, I'm still really excited to finish my Chilhowie quilt!

If I were to start this project today, with more knowledge of Bonnie Hunter's design style and my own feelings about scrap quilts, I would likely have not made the same choices. But none of that means I dislike what I made while I was still learning!

The Chilhowie quilt pattern was designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.

2023 Mystery Quilt: Indigo Way

The following year I decided to participate again, this time making a pattern called Indigo Way.

For last year's project, I put a little more thought into my colour selection than I had the year before. I took the time to draw up some colour swatches so I wouldn't have any extreme variation in value like I'd experienced the year before, and when selecting fabric, I did my best to avoid any particularly chaotic prints.

After planning out the colours I wanted to use, I was excited to get started on the piecing!

Having already made one Bonnie Hunter pattern, I felt I had a good idea of how she constructs her quilts. Typically, she seems to divide her units into matching sets, with each set being a part of a single block. Based on the number of sets, you can estimate how many blocks will be featured in the quilt.

As an example, if there were 36 sets of matching units, there are probably 36 blocks arranged in 6 rows of 6 blocks each.

Knowing that, I wanted to try making a gradient!

As I pieced my units, I kept the number of sets of each in mind and did my best to make roughly equal amounts of units with dark, medium, and light valued background prints.

I made most of the units, doing my best to keep up with the instructions as they were released, but did fall behind towards the end.

When I came back, I skipped over the steps I'd missed in order to work on the ongoing steps. At that time, we were working on assembling the block A's, which I have finished!

But, by skipping steps, I hadn't made the square in a square units needed to assemble the block B's, and had also missed the triangle in a square units needed for the quilt border.

That's where I left off, so it seems like I'll need to get ready to make some square in a square units soon if I want to finish my Indigo Way blocks before getting started on the new mystery quilt!

The Indigo Way quilt pattern was designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.

2024 Mystery Quilt: Old Town

With the arrival of a new November, I'm excited to be getting started on another mystery quilt along!

This year's pattern is called Old Town, and it once again calls for the use of four different colours. As seems to be my habit, I've decided to take a unique approach to colour and fabric selection by using multiple colours for my background!

I bought solid yardage for my accent colours and have pulled an appropriately colourful arrangement of fat quarters for my background! The fat quarters shown here are all ones I already owned, plus I have a bunch of smaller scraps and remnants I can use as well!

Even so, I may need to buy a few more pieces of certain colours to be able to make this quilt the way I hope to. I'll deal with that when the time comes!

I can't wait to get started on this project and see how much my choices alter the pattern, but as I've said, I want to get the Indigo Way blocks finished first!

The Old Town quilt pattern was designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. It will run as a free mystery quilt along beginning November 2024.

Now you all know a little more about my personal history with Bonnie Hunter and her annual quilt along projects!

Each year I've participated, I've enjoyed the process of learning new skills, trying new colour combinations, and making theories about each new step along the way!

Though I know none of the quilts I've shown were finished, if any of them interested you, I would love to have you join me in working on Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery project! Please share your progress by using #oldtownquilt as she requested in her part one pattern instructions so we can all find each other!

I can't wait to solve this Old Town mystery together!