Corey Yoder's "Border Mystery" 2026 - First three months’ progress

Corey started her mystery quilt this year in March, I believe it was. (Thank you, Corey). I decided to use bright rainbow scraps that I uncovered recently, and see what I could come up without knowing exactly where we were going as in every mystery quilt. She decided to call this year’s mystery a border mystery.

I made my center checkerboard a little shaded and then put on the little strips around it. And that’s all the first two months were.

 
 

The third month involves more piecing, but I didn’t get it done yet, so I’ll work on that soon, and then I’ll be caught up. She doesn’t offer her new clues til later in the month, so I think I should be able to be caught up before June’s round. (Note…keep reading)

Once again - I have come to grips with the idea that I just can’t get excited about an ordinary sampler mystery quilt. (I say that but if the sampler quilt has a fantastic layout or something different, I like them!) I guess it’s just not in my genes. So, with the exception of some amazing picture blocks by Lori Holt, I will probably be abstaining from most of the quilt alongs that seem to be out there which involve making a variety of unrelated blocks.

I know that not all mystery quilts are actually sampler quilts - but it seems like a lot of them lately are - at least the free ones like the Riley Blake, Moda and Sewcialites that is going on right now. I may regret that I didn’t do them, but so far, I’ve so busy sewing everything….we’ll see. I guess time will tell. I also think there are lots more mystery quilts out there than I am even aware of.

But I do like medallion style quilts and do them often for charity . I find them effective and definitely there is a focus to the quilt - hopefully - the center!

I am liking it so far. I realize we’re not far along. I went to my stash and rummaged around in it and found a few more pieces to throw in as well thinking that maybe I can use them up in this project. None of them are very big.

This is the third month’s clues - these blocks.

I did get caught up on this border mystery by the time I finished this blog post - so here I am, all caught up to current. Corey releases the clues the third Saturday of the month, if I remember right. Anyway, this may be the first one I’ve ever actually been caught up with. Of course, I’ve not actually done this kind of thing many times compared to how long I’ve been quilting. I wasn’t even aware of these kinds of things out there!

and then I sewed these to the center - and now it looks like this -

I am in no way connected to Corey Yoder, but let me link to her three blogs that share these steps so far.

Center - center checkerboard

Border 1 - simple strips

Border 2 - the blocks

I do not know what the future holds, but I will try to keep up with this one as it goes - or at least every couple of months. Naturally as it gets bigger, it takes a bit more time to make those borders. So we’ll see. I have all my bright rainbow fabrics and the white I’m using packed up together, waiting for the next month’s clue.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey.
Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky PetersenComment