Breaking Radio Silence

December was a bit of a whirlwind, with lots of Christmas preparation, a trips, hosting Christmas Day, a trip,  and New Years Eve.  That, plus what I was quilting was all gift-y stuff, and I didn't want to wreck any surprises for anyone, led to radio silence.  I'll catch up on those in the next few days.

In October, Along Came Quilting announced they were doing a block on the month on Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks book.  I didn't have a chance to get into the store to see the sample, but I had the book, and didn't have a scrappy stash to work from...so I took a leap of faith (on a $30/month x 10 months commitment), really really hoping I'd like the fabrics chosen, and signed up.  It was so popular, I missed the first group, but got in on the 2nd, which started in December.  And, even though I live in Calgary, I decided to take the mail out option...nice to get something other than bills in the mail for a change!

When the first package arrived in December, I was so pleased with the fabric choices, phew, but, as previously stated, December was a wee bit busy, and so I only got a chance to open up those fabrics and sew some blocks yesterday.  10 blocks a month, for 10 months.

The book only has cutting instructions for each block...so I'm glad I've got some experience quilting.  And the fabrics chosen by ACQ are similar enough to the ones in Tula's blocks that it's not too hard to figure out which fabric goes where.

 ACQ provided extra fabric for pieces they thought you might choose to fussy cut...so I chose to fussy cut those birds OUT of my quilt.

 These blocks finish at 6", and many of them have 24 pieces!  I have friends who do beautiful miniature work, and I know this is NOT a miniature, but this is mini-enough for me right now!

Some of the blocks are put together in a not-expected or non-symmetrical way, the bottom blocks below are good examples.  Tula explains in her book that she's purposefully embraced the non-symmetrical...the bottom left block could have formed a pinwheel design in the center, the center block could have had the chevrons run all across the block, and the bottom right block could have had the fabric placed such that the turquoise pieces didn't touch...I pondered for a while, and decided to build the blocks as designed... although the more I look at those chevrons...I might wind up changing those