Finish it up Friday - Saturday Sampler BOM's

I've mentioned the Saturday Sampler before on my blog.  It's a neat thing one of my local quilt shops does to showcase new products for their customers.  They also have show and tell (of course!) and you can participate in a BOM if you would like.  This year she had to have a sign up list with a limited number of spaces because she can only fit about 120 or so chairs into the classroom.  It is packed every time.  Pretty good huh? 

So, my finish for today is my 12 quilt blocks for 2013 Saturday Sampler BOM.  Yes, I really did just finish them.  I held on to December's block all this time because I just didn't have time before to do it.  Plus one of the blocks that I had done - and I wrote a tutorial for here (the Honey Bee Block) - I redid it because I didn't like the dark red fabric.  It was just too dark for me.

 The blue, yellow and white block in the lower left corner is my redone Honey Bee Block.  These fabrics are all batiks with a white muslin background.

Do any of these blocks stand out to you?  The one in the top left corner of this last picture stands out to me.  The block is called Spinner but I'm not crazy about that fabric.  Looking at all the blocks together, I realize that there are only about 3 where I used the fabric that was given to us for the block and didn't substitute my own.  The Spinner is one of them but I may end up redoing it.  

I have one more finish.  My January 2014 Saturday Sampler BOM.  The Barbara Fritchie Star.

We were given the pink floral fabric and muslin for the background but I chose to use this Allison Glass text print as my background fabric for all of my blocks for this year.  I'm really proud of how well this block turned out.
**Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and My Quilt Infatuation**

Mixing Up Quilt blocks

During one of my recent quilting classes, our teacher challenged us to see what other blocks we could make with the pieces of the blocks we were working on for class. I accepted the challenge :)

So, let's mix it up, shall we?  
Here are the nine patches of my card trick block switched around to make a star.  The corner pieces would make diamonds when more blocks are added to it.

Here those same squares are again.  I don't know what to call this block but it's very pretty.

This next block is one that I completed back in January for the BOM at my LQS.  I had really messed it up by being over zealous in squaring up each block. 

 It was suppose to be 12 inches but ended up 10 by the time I was through with it.  So, I decided to remake it but before I sewed the squares together, I played around with the layout and this is what I came up with.

 A really cool X!

Then changed around again and you get this:

Notice how if I had turned the bottom row of blocks upside down, it would have made a different X shape.  That would make a cool quilt - diamonds and X's.

And look, now it's a heart!

I love quilting - it's so versatile and unpredictable yet precise and organized. 

These are my 5 blocks together.  January through May.  I haven't done June's block yet.  I still have a week and a half until the next meeting :)

 

**Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.**