Marcie has been inspired to try her own version of my block from this post a while back. I love her blocks and I'm so tempted to start a new set of my own. Back when I made them there were hardly any reproductions available in Australia and I used my 'best' fabrics... Now I look at them and go Ugh! How Boring! But that was all I had to work with. I could do them much better now......

My blocks were all done by hand, and I'd machine sew them if I did them today, but I'd still just cut heaps of fabrics and 'audition' each piece in the block. Like Marcie says you get some lovely surprises that way.

I must NOT start another project! Especially one I've already done! I'm trying to nerve myself to show you the stack of blocks that didn't even make it to the stage of being a proper ufo, with brothers and sisters and an aspiration to be a finished something one day. I quite often grab some scraps and make a block to try out some scribble on graph paper, and a lot of these are non-starters. They just get put in the drawer as reference and I was amazed to see how many there were. I shall have to do a proper 'orphan' quilt with all these one day, but a lot of them are uninspiring. But they'd make a charity quilt I suppose, and they'd at least be out of the drawer and being used.

You can't see it from this photo, but there's over 60 blocks here! That's enough for two orphan quilts. Sometimes I prefer not to know these things, now I'll feel guilty about adding more blocks to The Drawer.

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It seems ages since I posted, don't know why I've been so neglectful. I have been busy organising my fabrics, an activity that can absorb me for days at a time. I love having it in drawers rather than stacking tubs, which were too hard to lift off each other as I have a back problem at the moment. So I felt totally justified in taking time off to categorise and straighten all my supplies and make then easier to manage.

I'd like to say that's ALL my fabric in those 30 drawers, but of course I'd be lying....

In the course of my rummaging I went through a lot of my ufos and set together these blocks as a bit of distraction. I finished them years ago and had been looking for the perfect setting material. Everything I tried turned the blocks to mush and they sat in a pizza box waiting.....waiting...

Then Keryn sent me 5 yards of material that was on special at Spotlight (sort of like Joanne's in America) and the inspiration to try the two together struck me. Perfect!! This is why I don't mind letting projects 'lie fallow' for a while. (OK, years in some instances.) I'd rather wait for the perfect fabric and get it right than finish something with a poor choice, just to get it 'done'.

This will have some sort of pieced border around it next- back to the drawing board- but I'm enthused about getting it this far after being stalled so long.

These blocks are special to me because I pieced a lot of them during one of my middle son's hospital stays. At eleven he was diagnosed with type one diabetes and when he was 16 had to spend a week in a hospital 150 miles away to stabilise his insulin regime. I packed up all my cut pieces, knowing I'd have to have something to keep me busy for that time, and as I sat with him and watched telly I pieced over half of these. It's strange that some of the staff seemed to think I was mad and wasting my time, and yet the people who sat doing nothing at all (except staring at the telly-urgh) were treated as 'normal'.

I prefer my madness thankyou.....

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One of Mum's cacti has this incredible huge red flower, and there are about 5 more on the same plant. Very spectacular, but I've got no idea what it's called. Pudgy hand included for scale....My trip to the quilt shop yielded some fat quarters and 2 metres of a likely material for the setting squares. I shan't show it here until I've decided whether it's the One.

Don't know what this haul will be used for, none of them are really exciting but they go with collections that I'm amassing for certain projects. I'm in a constant state of being 'With Project', so I'm always on the lookout.
Let's just say I think I'm a bit out of control with the square in square units. I've done 27 blocks and yet I've got more of the little units than when I started. And I can't stop cutting more out!! You can partly see a red and cream block that I got side-tracked with, ahem, I might be making a set of them too.....As well as two other ideas I had, but I'm not saying nuthin about them....

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Hedgehog asked what the name of the block was in the border and I'm not really sure. I've seen it called Flyfoot and I like that name so I haven't bothered to research it . I have no idea what the centre block is called at all.
I'm off to an antiques fair today, and a visit to a really nice quilt shop. I hope to get a setting fabric for my square in sqare blocks which are almost all done. Another top well on the way. And I confess I've also been working on a couple of other blocks made from the same units; I'm a wee bitty obsessed at the moment. Obsession can be a Good Thing, can't it?
Can't it?

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On Lucy's blog she reduced 5 UFOs to one by combining them all into a new top. That reminded me I did something similar years ago by combining these two projects. The border used 30 blocks, which surprised me, I actually had to make more to get it done. I like the result, and I might go through my old UFOs and see if I can combine any of them, somehow this top doesn't have the guilt value that the unfinished blocks had on their own.

I loved the look of Lucy's quilt, because there were so many different blocks in there, whereas this looks quite planned. I obviously need to be a bit more 'maverick".

This top was made in the long ago age when I did just about everything by hand, with templates. I loved the centre block, and now I'm tempted to make another top so I can use rotary cutting and machine sewing. That's silly, I don't need more of these blocks, but it would be so much easier....

It was a much more pleasurable process in some ways, but I just don't have the time now. Nevertheless, I loved handpiecing them in front of the telly at night and cutting out every fabric carefully and choosing the colours for each combination . I think I'm going to limit my handwork to applique, because that's something I will never do by machine.

And here's a quilt from my favourite book, Legacy, by Nancilu Burdick, about her grandmother Talula Gilbert Bottoms. This 'Throw-Together' quilt was made by Talula's mother-in-law Elisa Bottoms and is dated 1875 - 1890. I adore this quilt, so full of scraps and the start of quite a few quilts, all combined when another cover was needed and married together out of necessity. I love making my quilts, I love choosing and cutting and buying the reproductions to make traditional designs, but who could ever capture the integrity of an old quilt like this, made from necessity and hardship? Even though I'm Australian I feel that this is part of my quilt heritage too, quilts like this are the reason why I'll always be grounded in the traditional rather than the modern. Just love it.

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