Mystery Quilt Challenge quilts revealed

After months and months of making a million flying geese units and a gazillion half-square triangles, the solutions to the 2016 Mystery Quilt Challenge were revealed at the November Choo Choo Quilters guild meeting.

2016 Choo Choo Mystery Challenge exhibit.

Congratulations to (from left) Becky Trotter, Kim Huston and Janice Wheeler who received top honors by Viewer's Choice, and to all the participants on a great job surviving solving the Mystery!

2016 Challenge winners (from left) are Becky Trotter, third place;
Kim Huston, first place; and Janice Wheeler, second place.

The Mystery Challenge was designed for guild members to learn and practice various methods for creating basic patchwork units—half-square triangles and flying geese. Once made, the trillions of basic units were arranged into larger units and blocks with the final layout revealed mid-summer. Challenge participants had the option of following this layout or venturing out on their own... adding additional borders, cornerstones, sashing strips or otherwise reworking the layout to suit their vision.

As seen in the photo above, assembling a trillion or more patchwork bits will yield a throw or bed size quilt. High praise goes to those who both pieced and quilted these larger size Challenge quilts! Here are the final results.

Pam's no-left-overs Challenge quilt. 

Pam incorporated all the left-over bits into the outside border of her quilt. No scraps remain from her Challenge.

Detail of Pam's quilt. She quilted it with straight line quilting.

Vista made several Challenge pieces when she discovered she couldn't deplete the pile of patchwork bits with just two reversible table runners.

Vista's Challenge pieces.

Vista's pieces were reversible. She used both free-motion and
straight line quilting to complement the patchwork.

Joanna departed from the original layout and opted for a medallion style quilt. This red and green color palette is perfect for the holidays.

Joanna's Challenge quilt. Quilted by another.

Dawn added stripped borders and corner blocks to her blue and purple Challenge quilt. Notice how the blocks in the center column merge into the outside border. Clever job with this piecing.

Dawn's Challenge quilt. Quilted by another.

Kim's Challenge quilt is an anniversary gift for a lucky couple. Kim inserted plain sashing strips between the blocks to create a 4-block layout. Smaller patchwork pieces were incorporated around the outside and in the corners.

Kim's Challenge quilt took 1st Place. Quilted by another.

Listening to Janice's recap of her Challenge journey, you could tell she enjoyed making this quilt. The darker border nicely frames the center patchwork.

Janice's Challenge Quilt took 2nd Place. Quilted by another.

Here is the back of Janice's quilt. Two for the price of one! She even collected the cut-off bits from making flying geese and pieced them into little bitty half-square triangles.

The back of Janice's Challenge quilt.

Becky added multiple borders to this blue and yellow quilt. She purchased enough fabric to make coordinating pillow shams. This beautiful 3-piece ensemble is going to be a gift.

Becky's Challenge quilt took 3rd Place. Quilted by another.

Sissy incorporated bits of vintage lace from her grandmother's placemats. When marking the quilt for quilting, Sissy discovered she could not see the marks on the front, so she found a solution and marked and quilted the quilt from the back. Way to go! This is what a Challenge is all about.

Sissy's Challenge Quilt. She quilted it from the back.

Bits of vintage lace are incorporated into the cream colored squares in the centers of the blocks.

Detail of Sissy's Challenge quilt with vintage lace in the patchwork.

Nancy persevered through a few instruction anomalies to complete her Challenge quilt. She said she loves batiks and enjoyed working on a Mystery project.

Nancy's Challenge quilt.

The straight line quilting in Nancy's quilt does not detract from the lovely batiks.

Martha chose a yellow and grey color palette for her Challenge quilt.

Martha's Challenge quilt.

Her quilting in-the-ditch highlights the patchwork.

Detail of Martha's quilt.

Garie hand quilted her red and yellow Challenge quilt!

Garie's Challenge quilt was hand quilted.

The shape of Tennessee is appliquéd next to the label on the back of the quilt.

Detail of Garie's Challenge quilt.

She did piecing on the back as well.

Back of Garie's Challenge quilt.

Using those million patchwork pieces, Theresa created her own layout. Don't you like the black fabric accents?

Theresa's Challenge quilt.

Upon a closer look, the black fabric has white pin dots. This fabric is also used in the piped binding (shown below). Nice detail!

Detail of Theresa's quilt showing ditch quilting and a piped binding.

Dawn used a variety of fun prints in her quilt. Once pieced, she decided to frame the blocks and set them off with the addition of narrow sashing strips in a red solid. Very striking!

Dawn's Challenge quilt.

Dawn quilted the quilt in-the-ditch and added a scrappy pieced binding. What a fun detail!

Detail of Dawn's quilt.

Thanks to Cristy for coordinating this year's Challenge. Congratulations to all the participants and thanks for a great show.