Global Warming Perhaps?

After reporting on my glacial speed, sewing my VQR blocks... I am pleased to report there has been a bit of a surge in productivity. 

My tilted star block.  You'll be interested to know that each star point section is identically paper pieced, and then attached to the central square using a partial seam.  Very clever.  This block still have the paper on the back which somewhat explains the ripple effect...

OK - this block looks way complicated... but kinda cool.  This had paper pieced sections added onto the central cross.  Of course, there may be someone who constructed their one a bit different from the instructions.

And just out of interest, this is Monika's block (on top) and my block (underneath) just to illustrate how the secondary pattern looks.  Even with completely different colour placement you can see how it combines to create this sort of nine patch in the block intersections.  Wouldn't this be an ideal scrap buster?  [To be honest I think sewing those blocks together would probably make me shit my pants go insane.  This is probably the best thing about sewing a sampler - you never have to worry about sewing multiples of the blocks together.]

And this is the project in the book using the same block with much simpler colour placement.  [Although I do wonder if you couldn't achieve the same look with a much easier block.]

I got this block finished.  I must admit to thinking this was a somewhat weird block.
 

Now that I've sewn it - I have changed my mind and am growing to love it.  Might just be the green fabrics with that lovely soft grey...

And this is the quilt project in the book.  I don't know... it still looks kinda weird.  This layout had a slightly different colour in the second-fourth columns... but looking at it together, I think you could have fun with the greater scheme of things, and how the design creates larger squares, maybe creating some kind of overlapping colour illusion.  Sounds technical - I think I'll just stick with the green block I've made.

In other news, I spent a great morning with my old Friday patchwork ladies... and spent some time hand quilting on my Constellations quilt.  Man, a week later and my hands have only just finished aching... which makes me wonder about the hand pains I was experiencing early last year, when I even got to the point of having x-rays to check whether I had arthritis in my hands.  I suppose one good point of not doing a lot of sewing is that my hands have been a lot less achey.

OK, I think that brings me up to date.  Hope you have enjoyed the progress...