On Ringo Lake Finish

A few years ago, when Bonnie Hunter announced her On Ringo Lake Mystery, I caved to temptation. I'm not brave enough to stray from her color pallet when it's a mystery quilt and these colors were out of my comfort zone, but I was intrigued by the combination. I began by digging through my stash and admittedly, I made a few purchases in order to add a little more variety, but future quilts will be better for it. :) And between the digging and shopping, I came up with these:

                            

I wasn't able to keep up with the clues as they were posted, but I didn't worry about it - I just enjoyed stitching as time allowed and eventually, the blocks came together.

                                         

After the layout was revealed, I stumbled upon this image on Pinterest and I set off in a new direction. All I was able to find was the image and it said it was pieced by Forest Jacobsen, but there was no link.

                                       

 It required some un-stitching of units and some deconstruction of the image in order to bring it all to fruition. It also required a restructuring of the setting triangles - the top one is the original design and the bottom is the new one:

                                     

  I also ended up adding a brown piano key border and brown binding because I had leftover pieces that were already the perfect size and thought it might ground or tone down some of the coral and turquoise. I also just really like brown:

                                 

But the top sat for a good long time before it was quilted:

                                

 I bought yards and yards of this print years ago for $2.00/yd and it finally found it's home on the back of this quilt:

Jackie used a turquoise thread and her quilting brought such great movement to Bonnie's clever design:

My version finishes at 86 x 100 and I take my hat off to Bonnie and her mad designing skills. I'm not generally one to dive into mystery quilts, but I always learn something new and it gives me a whole new appreciation for pattern design.

DH had just finished his feed run and pulled up as I was perched atop the ladder, clipping the quilt to the side of the barn. Skeet was wore out, but he jumped out of the feed truck and plopped down without any persuasion on my part. He's a lot like DH in that respect - neither will pose for a picture.

As you can tell, we're still waiting on rain...the ground is bare. Nary a green sprig to be seen, but the wind wasn't howling and that makes it a good day: