Mysterious times

Oh, I'm living in mysterious times here.  There's the Quiltville mystery, of course, and then there's Quiltbug's Christmas Eve mystery, a New Year's Eve mystery on the quilt-talk group and a New Year's Day mystery on Planet Patchwork.  Not to mention Barbara Brackman's Civil War sampler, with a surprise every Saturday.   How, oh how do I get myself committed to this many mysteries?

I used to be leery of them because I did a few and didn't much like the results.  But Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville mysteries are always wonderful, and I have enjoyed the last few mysteries I did in the quilt magazines, so I thought it would be entertaining to jump right in and do the two over the New Year's weekend since we're not going anywhere and won't have company.  Plus, now that I have a sewing room my stitchery doesn't interfere with my cooking space in the kitchen.  I can close the door and block off all the mess.  It's all good.

I stumbled on the Christmas Eve mystery in an advertising email from Quiltbug.  I have done their simple mysteries before and used them for charity quilts, and this one was a small table topper in Christmas colors, so why not?  I can always use another decoration quilt for next year.  They started posting instructions yesterday for cutting and color selection, and put up the first instruction for making oodles of HSTs (which had to be trimmed to size, yuck - I even did that on the kitchen table while monitoring supper cooking).  Now the first instruction of the day has been posted and I'm finished, along with my Civil War block.

Time for breakfast.  And then, making a pumpkin pie, sugar-free pumpkin custard for me, and haystacks.  Do you make haystacks?  They're simplicity itself, with just butterscotch pieces, pecans and those crunchy chow mein noodles.  But they're addictive.  Husband asked for some this year, and it will be hard to mix them up without sampling the goods. Dratted diabetes!