The 2025 Murder Mystery Quilt is NOW OPEN for registration!!
Join us next year for Murder At Machu Picchu and sew the quilt to solve the crime with the nicest quilters on the internet.
We are celebrating the TENTH ANNIVERSARY of the Murder Mystery Quilt in 2025, and there is SO MUCH for you to discover with us. This warm community has such a sense of humor and curiosity, they’re welcoming and friendly, generous and joyous. Sign up here and get ready for your best year ever.
Since 2015, the Murder Mystery Quilt has been the one-year membership club that invites you to Sew The Quilt To Solve The Crime. We’re a warm, friendly community of quilters at all levels who love sewing and stories! The MMQ has traveled the world with our fictional heroine, Kitty Campbell, from Jamestown to the Appalachian Trail to Egypt to Hawaii–and in 2025, we’re headed to the ancient citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru!
Listen to this post as a PODCAST episode!
Sew The Quilt To Solve The Crime: The Murder Mystery Quilt
The Murder Mystery Quilt is a monthly subscription club that reads along together and stitches up a quilt to find clues and solve the murder. A mystery quilt is a quilting project that invites you to sew a block at a time–but the overall design of the quilt isn’t revealed until all the blocks are sewn. Imagine putting a puzzle together without the box top, but with an all-knowing older sister guiding you as you put the pieces together.
The MURDER Mystery Quilt, though, is also a REAL MYSTERY: each month, along with the block pattern and design, you receive a chapter of an original, exclusive mystery story. Each chapter reveals clues as the plot unfolds, and it’s your job to seek out whodunit! Additional clues to solve the mystery are hidden INSIDE the quilt design, so you get to SEW THE QUILT TO SOLVE THE CRIME.
You can read more about how the MMQ got started in these past posts: the original launch, the 2016 quilt, the 2017 quilt, the 2018 quilt, the 2019 quilt, the 2020 quilt, the 2021 quilt, the 2022 quilt, the 2023 quilt, and our current 2024 project.
Our Heroine: Kitty Campbell
The heroine of our story each year since 2016 is Kitty Campbell, Archaeobotanist. As an expert in the prehistoric relationships between humans and plants, Kitty knows about seeds, agriculture, pollen, and tree ring dating. Her skills and knowledge lead her around the world as a “shovel bum,” an archaeologist for hire–but for some reason, she keeps finding herself drawn into solving murders!
Kitty arrives at Machu Picchu, bucket list destination for many, an ancient Inca citadel filled with mystery. What she expects is to lead a group of students through a field school season, while pursuing her own research on the origins of the potato. She does NOT expect to uncover a mummy–a HUGE discovery for her small troupe, one that can make all their careers. But “mummy” calls to mind an ancient burial, and this death? Is certainly not ancient.
Our quilters will follow along in the story with Kitty as she collects clues to discover who got mummified in the dry air of Peru, how they made it to Machu Picchu, and where to find the killer. The clues are hiding in the quilt pattern so members can sew and solve at the same time!
Our Quilt: Inspired By The Citadel & Landscape of Machu Picchu!
The colors of our quilt are drawn directly from the landscape and textiles of the Land of the Incas! Build your quilt with deep shades of green that reflect the hillsides, the terraces, and the rainforest of Peru; bold and saturated brights like coral, ruby, sunshine yellow, and orange pulled from the weavings and embroidery produced by local artisans; and blues & purples that remind us of the skies and sunsets over Machu Picchu, the ancient mountain.
Each year, the design of our mystery quilt is different, and that’s part of the fun! For 2025, our quilt is built around a central medallion, and each block is directly drawn from the symbols found throughout Incan art & architecture. We love to offer members BONUS BLOCKS, too, so many of our blocks have ALTERNATE blocks inspired by the plant life of the Incas, which can be swapped out for blocks or used to make an entirely separate quilt! With a total of over TWENTY patterns included in your subscription, a membership with the Murder Mystery Quilt is the best quilting purchase you’ll make all year.
Each month for twelve months, you receive a new pattern as an MMQ member, and in 2025 the blocks include traditional piecing techniques along with a small amount of applique and some (optional) foundation paper pieced elements. Using the primary and bonus blocks, you have the freedom to sew & swap until the design suits you perfectly, and to use your colors in ways that reflect your personal taste. One border is integrated into the design this year, which finishes at 60″ x 72″ and will be a treasure for years to come! Additional borders are available as an option at the end of our year together, making every one of the MMQ finished quilts totally unique.
Dozens of former MMQ members have entered their completed Murder Mystery Quilts in quilting competitions and won blue ribbons, which is a huge statement of their work and the supportive environment we work to build at the MMQ, where we encourage you to stay on track and FINISH your quilt, along with your Clue Crew.
What’s A Clue Crew?
Clue Crews are smaller groups within the Murder Mystery Quilt each year who get to know one another better through our private Facebook groups, where it’s possible to make new friends and ask questions in a warm, welcoming space. Our Clue Crews have become one of my very favorite parts about the MMQ! We have quarterly contests that get members to open up and share the fun details about their lives, like the pyramid-building contest the year we went to Egypt, where one member built her pyramid from hay bales on her farm, and photographed herself climbing to the top!
Clue Crews are also places where members’ real lives get shared with others who care and understand, like the year California’s wildfires took the homes of three members, so the Clue Crews got together and re-made their lost Murder Mystery Quilt tops of the same fabrics each member had chosen–and shipped them to those who had lost their homes. That incredible act of community and generosity would have been enough, but MMQers always go above and beyond, so members KEPT ON SEWING and donated over 100 full quilts to local California school kids who had lost their homes.
The members of the Murder Mystery Quilt truly are the nicest quilters on the internet, and I know they want to get to know you!
How To Quilt Is Included In Every Registration!
Something about the community of the MMQ and the Clue Crews reminds me of when my kids were in Montessori schools, where the classrooms were made up of a range of ages. The older kids took turns sharing their skills with the younger children, teaching them how to tackle a task or giving pointers, or even simply working alongside the new students as they tried something new.
Our MMQ members do the same thing, and I am intrigued and thrilled each year at how much I learn from the tips and ideas they share! For newer quilters, and for those who are more self-taught or have gaps in their quilting knowledge, I’ve also included the ENTIRE How To Quilt video series as part of every MMQ 2025 membership!
This 18 video series includes patterns for 12 quilt blocks to make a gorgeous sampler quilt, plus additional patterns for another 10 FULL quilts along the way, AND projects based around each quilt block design. The official launch of the 2025 Murder Mystery Quilt is January 8, 2024 and the How To Quilt series is such a fun way to get ready for it!
We’ve Got Prizes!
Part of the fun is guessing whodunit! Members of the Murder Mystery Quilt can earn BONUS CLUES each month by completing their block before the next pattern arrives. This helps keep you motivated so we all finish together! No more mystery quilt UFOs floating around.
Plus! By collecting bonus clues and reading the mystery along with other members, you can guess the killer. Every correct guess goes in the bucket for a prize drawing at the end of our year together! Prize baskets are HUGE and include fabric, notions, tools, treats, and goodies related to the setting of our mystery–many of which I traveled across the globe and chose for our winners with my very own hands. I LOVE sending prize packages internationally, and anyone can win!
The 2025 Murder Mystery Quilt:
Halloween 2024: registration is OPEN to the public!
November 2024: fabric requirements arrive via email to all members and Clue Crews are assigned
December 2024: watch your inbox for countdowns and updates, and make the Advent Calendar, an MMQ bonus exclusive!
January 8, 2025: the MMQ25 officially begins! the first block and chapter arrive in your inbox
Every second Wednesday in 2025: a new chapter and block will arrive, and bonus clues are sent out to members who completed the previous months’ block by the deadline
October 2025: the “guess” bucket opens so members can guess the name of the killer!
December 31, 2025: the “guess” bucket closes
January 1, 2026: the final chapter of our mystery arrives via email
January 7, 2026: winners of our prize baskets are announced!
1 Comment
PatrickWen
November 13, 2024 at 8:53 amgifogacot88@gmail.com