Every Oct. 31, now for 4 years, we’ve looked forward to Bonnie Hunter’s mystery quilt color reveal. I must say that this year, on Oct.30, I was absolutely thrilled to see the color choices. I had been dreading the reveal, figuring more gray, civil war blue and orange would be on the Lowe’s cards. (This year, she did it on Oct. 30, since the 31st was a Sunday.)

With the help of Becky in Poland and Chris W. in IL, we were alerted at 9:18 a.m. that the Reveal was published on her blog HERE. Within minutes after the reveal, I had asked Ken to hop into his truck and hightail it to our local Lowe’s, about 12 minutes away, and get the color cards. I gave him the printout of the blog post that told exactly which ones to pick up.

He was back by 10:20 with 4 sets of color cards. He stapled them together so people could borrow them, and yet, the color card would be so long that people wouldn’t accidentally walk out with them in their hands.

This is what the color cards looked like all stapled together. We’ve loaned these out to people who come in, hunting “just the right colors” for the Rhododendron Trail Mystery Quilt.

You can’t imagine how thrilled I was to see dark red, hot pink, super bright yellow, and neutrals to be in this beautiful bundle of fabrics for the 2021 Winter Rhododendron Trail Mystery quilt, which is set to begin the day after Thanksgiving. The big problem for me was the aqua. Aqua means water color. The colors on the cards were seafoam green and the ones in Bonnie’s stack of sample pulls were all turquoise. Neither screamed aqua, or maybe both did. I wasn’t sure. I knew I was in trouble there.

Now, this was a Saturday morning, so our store was starting to fill up with people. So, I didn’t have a ton of time to do much with it, except look at the “color reveal blog post” and try to sneak a peak at re-reading what I had skimmed at 9:18 earlier in the day in between customers.

I know I said it before, but you just can’t imagine how happy I was to see such bright and cheery colors. I knew that we had a slew of bolts of Idaho Prairie Star (Kim Diehl’s dark red civil war line) down in my chop shop. I also knew that I had super hot pink and lighter pink coming out of the wazzoo… wherever that is.

So, as soon as the store settled down around 3:30 that afternoon, I set to work to start pulling fabrics. I went to the back room, where we have bolts that had never gone up yet. Then, I scoured our shelves in the appropriate rooms. Then, lastly, I went to my chop shop, where I keep my overflow of fabrics, for just such occasions.

I cut one set and took it to photograph it, deciding that the aqua was the problem child.

I soon made the decision to change the aqua to either Caribbean (greenish) or turquoise (bluish).

If you were to google any of these terms and ask google for a sample of these words, you’d have any number of colors showing up, all from greens to blues.

So, I made the decision to go with those 2 choices and not to worry about whether it was greenish or bluish, but that it would be one or the other.

I gathered scads of bolts and took them down to the chop shop where I could have plenty of space to spread everything out, study it and began to make bundles! These are the fabrics that I started with.

After a couple of days of selling those, people started asking if I could do a batik bundle. I knew that the struggle would be real for the neutrals. Seriously, folks, getting neutrals is hard. So hard, that I try all year around to get neutrals. However, they do sell out pretty quickly when I get them in, but I strive to find them all the time.

I finally managed to find 13 different batiks that were at least light in color, and produced a few of some of what I think are the prettiest batik bundles I’ve ever seen.

The original batik pack was more of a challenge, due to not having as many batiks.

Some of you have started sending us pictures of previous Mystery Quilts by Bonnie Hunter. We love it when you share things that you make

It does not make us insecure to see what other designers do. I know that for some people, it seems weird that we are selling sets of fabric for a quilt that another designer has promoted. However, I feel like Bonnie has done a great thing by providing a mystery quilt with clues that people around the world enjoy watching, if not participating in the free mystery quilt program.

Both Becky and I will enjoy vicariously as I see the finished product. Bonnie’s style is quite different from many others, and I’m sure that this year’s winter quilt will be super bright and cheery, and your quilt will end up being different from anyone else’s even if you start with the same fabrics. I’m especially glad to see happy colors, as 2020 and 2021 have been very difficult for many of us.

If you would like to participate, get your order in for your quilt fabric bundle package.

Remember, you have to go to the Quiltville site each Friday, starting the day after Thanksgiving, and get your clue to know what to do next. After 5 or 6 weeks, the clues will all be given out and if you’re following along closely, you’ll have a quilt finished!

But come here to get your fabrics!

When you purchase such a beautiful bundle, you’re helping other projects, like the Noble projects!

This is what a sample quilt fabric bundle looks like:

This one has Caribbean as the constant. You get to pick whether you want the turquoise (bluish) or the caribbean (greenish). If you don’t pick, then we pick for you. Either color is just stunning.

This is the current batik pack. Once these are gone, well, ladies and gentlemen, they are gone. I’m out of the neutrals that make this whole thing possible.

If you’d rather do your own with our bundles, you could use the Mixed Flamingo Pinks for the Pinks, the Cheddar and Sunshine for the Yellows, the Idaho Prairie Star for the Garnets, a couple of white/white or Honey Maple for the neutrals and then buy 3 yards of a “constant”.

Enjoy the ride! We’re here to help make it easier for you to enjoy it!

Thanks so much for letting us help!

—Rachael

Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Thanks for coming along with me on my quilting/sewing journey!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!

Rhododendron Trail - Blazing our own trail in this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt.