Quilt Blocks

About 5 weeks ago, I saw a facebook ad for a Block of the Week quilting challenge ~ that would last 9 weeks.  Since this is a craft I want to get better at, I signed up for it, not realizing it started the next day.  Yikes!  Now to find some fabric to use...I went shopping in my craft room and found some pretty coordinating pinks, grays, and whites (this was from a JoAnns sale years ago where the calico fabrics were .99, I bought several sets of coordinating fabrics).  I printed out the 1 pattern and got to work cutting and piecing, and seam ripping, and resewing and teeth gnashing, etc.  This challenge has a facebook page that you can join and with 10,000 members you get lots of helpful advice and a load of inspiration and fabric choices that others are using.  Since they published a picture of the finished quilt, some have even gone ahead and done the whole thing....without a pattern or specific instructions~ this had actually caused quite a bit of ugliness with the do one a week crowd and the lets get it done crowd.  Personally, I am quite impressed with the fact that some can do this and figure it out on their own ~ I am not one of those folks.  Anyway, here are the 5 blocks so far.

After I finished this one and put the pic on fb, Amy came in and told me one of the blocks was wrong.  She had spotted the top right block turned the wrong way...out came the seam ripper and it got fixed.

I had to pull in another fabric from the gray/pink/white collection for the outside corners, since I was running out of one. 5 blocks down 4 to go.

One of the awesome tips I heard from many people was to iron the seams open instead of the traditional ironing the seam to the darker fabric.  This has made it much easier for me to match up all those corners and feel somewhat successful in this endeavor.  Its fun to post the picture each week when the block is finished and to see what others have done. 

It is amazing to me each week how different the block looks done in different fabrics.  I love to see everyones creativity.  I made a comment under last weeks block about being thankful that not every square contained a 1/2 sq triangle and ended up in a great conversation with the gal leading the challenge and contributing the blocks for the challenge. 

These blocks end up being 16 inches square ~ now I have to figure out what I am going to do with them when finished....they would make a cute baby girl quilt ~ if only I had a granddaughter! 

There is talk of another challenge and several have posted challenges from different sites.  So I am checking them out too~  time to use all that fabric and practice some new techniques!

Thankful for ~

helpful hints
encouragement
inspiration
sweet comments
a fabric stash
fun interaction