Mystery Day

Today is mystery day on my Mysteries For Relay group. This is a very easy one, and I am pretty sure the ladies will all enjoy it. I think this was one of the first quilts that I wrote up as a mystery. It was also one of the first mysteries I taught at my local guild, and everyone there loved it. I also did this quilt as a mystery at a guild in Maryland, I forget where now, but I remember it was a fall mystery, the leaves were beautiful as I drove…. I can’t remember where.

More later, after the group has finished the mystery….. I don’t want to talk about it too much, I might give away the mystery, LOL!

So while they are all working on Mystery #5 I’m going to answer some questions that came in about me and quilting and Relay. This question actually came from a lady who was thinking about joining the Mysteries For Relay group, but wasn’t exactly sure what the point of the group was.

That was easy for me to explain, I thought… The purpose of the group is to raise money for the American Cancer Society with donations, and then for me thank those donors with mysteries and projects. You make a donation, $5 per mystery or $30 a year, and then I say thank you the best way I know, sharing my quilt patterns in the form of a mystery. Of course if you are one of those people who don’t like mysteries, and there are people like that out there, then you don’t have to do it as a mystery. You can wait until the mystery has been solved, and download the full pattern when I post it.

She was very inquisitive, and asked me exactly how many mysteries a year I was going to do, and I had to tell her that I wasn’t exactly sure. My goal was at least six a year. We started the group in March, and this is Mystery #5. I also gave the ladies a “free” block pattern in July, a Friendship Flag. I have six more mysteries in the works, all brand new to me patterns, and all of them have been very successful with the testers. A few will probably be future BOMs, and the other ones will certainly be patterns for sale, to raise more money for ACS.

Then she asked me why I did this? That was an easy one to answer. … I Relay to help find the cure for cancer. Selfish reason, I don’t want to lose any more friends to cancer. Selfish reason again, I hate seeing people suffer with cancer. God didn’t make me smart enough to be a scientist, so I can’t find the cure. And for some reason I didn’t grow up rich, or marry a rich man, and I never won the lottery, so I can’t donate millions to fund the cure. So I do what I can the way I can, a pattern at a time, a mystery at a time, a quilt at a time… I raise money how ever I can. Every dollar helps.