Spinster's Wheel

The mystery has been revealed!

Nearly a year ago, the Hands of Friendship Quilt Guild in Kirksville, Missouri, asked me to design a mystery quilt for their members to participate in. (I used to belong to this guild when I lived closer, and many of them are my good friends still.) Of course, I said yes!

They wanted something that would run for six months, and they wanted to start last October. So I set to work and came up with a plan. With several different skill levels in the guild, I wanted it to be easy, but not boring. I also wanted them to be able to use scraps and stash, rather than requiring them to run out and purchase a lot of materials ahead of time. (Not that any of us abhor fabric shopping, but I also know most of us have stash we’d like to use up!)

I gave them fabric requirements and palette-choosing advice ahead of time, and then we all got together in October to kick things off. They all cut and sewed their little hearts out for the next six months, receiving one new set of instructions each month to move their projects forward, and once they had all the instructions, we decided that we would do a “grand reveal” at their July guild meeting. That would give everyone time to catch up and get their quilts quilted up if they so desired.

Well, yesterday was The Big Day — all the projects were finally revealed. And now I get to show them to you!

Prepare to be amazed.

I am completely thrilled with all the different color combos they all came up with, and how wonderfully they all turned out. Everyone used the exact same pattern, but each one came up with a different quilt.

And not one of them said they correctly guessed the mystery before the final installment, so I’m calling it a big success!

I’ll start by showing you my quilt. I had to make one to test all my instructions and make sure I had them all steered in the right direction. Here is the fabric pull I made for mine:

And here is my finished quilt, Spinster’s Wheel:

And now, you get to see everyone else’s. They had 30 participants, at least 24 of them stuck with it throughout, and 19 of them were able to be present last night to show theirs. That’s a pretty good turnout.

I’m gonna list them out in alphabetical order, so as not to miss someone . . .

Alice:

Ann:

April:

Barb B. (Kaffe with black, and I love her border!):

Barb R.:

Beverly:

Bonnie:

Brenda:

Carol (she came up with a totally different design and size, and it still works!):

Diane B. (Christmas! — but not in-your-face Christmas):

Diane S.:

Janice:

Jason:

Karen:

Kim:

Krista:

Nancy:

Shirlene:

Susan:

And here we all are in a group shot:

This is one of the most fun things I’ve been a part of lately, and it was so good to get to visit my former guild and catch up with my friends, and we had a really fun evening. I even dragged my friend, Linda, (also a former member) along with me. She readily agrees to be my partner in crime for a lot of things, the poor gal!

And now that the mystery has been revealed, and everyone knows the pattern, I have officially released the Spinster’s Wheel quilt pattern to the public.

You may notice that the group made theirs in two different sizes. I gave the guild members two different size options. However, the finished pattern only contains the large size. But you could easily figure out how to downsize it yourself, if you don’t want the large version. It finishes at 74 1/2” x 92”.

You can find the pattern in my Etsy shop HERE. It’s available in PDF (10 pages) and print versions until the print versions sell out, and then will remain available in the PDF version indefinitely. Go grab one for yourself. I’d love to see even more color combos!