Phew, the blue square in square top is done and I can work with something other than mid blue for a change! Perhaps there were so many of these fabrics languishing in my stash because I found them quite boring to work with in the first place. I love the finished top, but it almost put me to sleep sewing it! At least there are now three metres less of them in the fabric drawers.

When I was laying these blocks out on the design wall and trying desperately not to have similar fabrics next to each other, I realised the beauty of the true two-colour quilt. If you were only using two fabrics in the whole thing you could start to piece it together right from the start. You could build it row by row and never have to worry about 'placement' because it isn't relevant - every block is identical. I might have to test that out, and see if the tedium of only two fabrics is more than balanced by the ease of construction. It really did take me two days to get these blocks settled (I worked on other projects while I ruminated on the design wall) and it would be nice to skip that step altogether.

Another thing that annoyed me with this top was the pressing; I tried alternating the seams but still ended up with huge bumps at the intersections. In the end I pressed the joining seams open, which I don't like to do. For my next version of this pattern I might press the sqinsq units open and the block seams to one side and see if that works.

As Keryn can testify, I'm even more picky over the "perfect" pressing order than I am about "placement". I'm really not OCD about everything- observe the untouching points in the top- but I'll trade touching points for 'nice and flat' because that matters to me. Pick your battles, and your obsessions...

I was going through this book yesterday, and guess what I found?

Another large square in square quilt. I like the half square triangles around the edge, and I do have lots and lots of greens in my stash.....I hope I don't do something I'll regret later!