Sampler Blocks

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with sampler blocks - but as my quilting journey has progressed, I have found myself more inclined to make one off blocks, which when joined together become a sampler quilt.

Possible block setting Number 412 - alternate square and on point layout

A friend of mine and I have been making Amy Gibson's Sugar Club blocks - 2013 I think - which has been a bit of a slow drawn out process, but is slowly coming together.  I have had various ideas about how I would set my finished blocks (once they are finished of course).  Through a completely unrelated search through quilting books I was reminded that I really liked this particular setting:

Of course, I would do a 3x3 layout using nine blocks

which was in this book:

Wow, this book just has millions of blocks and settings to try out - not all to my taste, but certainly something to get your project started

It just all started me thinking about whether I could make this setting work with the various sampler blocks - knowing that I didn't have the regularity of the star block centre that the book project had.  I thought about it for quite a while - and I'm sure made it a whole lot more difficult than it really was.  In the end I figured it made as much sense to just try the setting with one of the blocks... this was how far I got before I ran out of background fabric...

but I also realised that it will work!  So happy faces all round.