It’s looking like 2022 is going to be the year of quilts made in steps with groups of other folks online.

The owners of 4 quilt shops, from Vermont to Oregon, got together to host a mystery quilt. The only qualification for participation was the purchase of a 2 1/2 inch strip roll from one of the four shops.

I picked this Riley Blake Gem Stones roll from Sew Creative Ashland, in Ashland Oregon, which the hometown of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. After consulting with them and giving some suggestions, I asked the staff in the shop choose my background fabric (Moda yellow Grunge) . They also picked out red Dit Dot Evolution (In the Beginning Fabrics) for a “pop” accent color (see the very top of the photo) that I’ve decided to use the red fabric as the binding for the quilt. I’m going to use the mushroom fabric from my stash as my accent.

Because I purchased this fabric roll online, I really had no idea about the fabric. I thought what I was seeing with the strips in the roll was what I was getting—subtle earth tones, each strip the color I was seeing in the roll. I was wondering if I had made too “safe” a choice.

HA!! Was I surprised when I undid the roll of strips. They are anything BUT safe or boring! At first I thought they were ombré, but then realized that they aren’t. The strips really are like chameleons. They are one color at one end of each strip, dotted with tiny diamonds of another color and then transform over the width of the strip to the color of the diamonds at the other end of the strips, with the tiny diamonds on that end, the color from the first end. There are an amazing number of gradated colors in the strip roll!

Here are just a few of the strips which I have started to sew together.

This is a mystery quilt, so I won’t know what this pattern is going to be until the last step is released at the beginning of February. Because of my choice of fabric roll, this quilt really is an adventure!

Because it’s a mystery, I can’t share the steps in as I sew them. But I will definitely be back to share this project when it’s a completed quilt top, sometime next month!