All the blocks are pieced! / the quilting begins

Wish I knew when I got the Civil War repro anvil block kits from the now closed Flying Geese quilt shop, but know it was a long time ago, and the box I had saved them in is finally empty and the blocks are now up on my design wall.

I plan to machine quilt each block separately, in the style of the potholder quilts that were sometimes made during that time period, and wanted to back each block with fabric that was similar to the pieces used in the front so that it would be easier to lay the quilt blocks out to sew them together when I was done.

Discovered when I started going through my Civil War fabric (collected back when I was making hundreds of little Dear Jane blocks) that even though I have a lot of different pieces, not many of them are large enough to go behind my 12" blocks with enough left to bring around to the front to make a faux binding, so, as usual for me lately, close is going to have to be good enough, but hopefully the back will still look good enough to make this quilt reversible.

I also had a harder time than expected finding batting to use inside my blocks since it's been so long since I last made a quilt that all my batting is tucked away in my closet, behind all the thrift store clothes that keep piling up, waiting for me to do my usual spring cleaning and take most of them back to a second hand store.

I finally dug out a bag of Quilter's Dream 70% cotton, 30% poly, a batting I've never used before, but thought sounded like a good idea, since cotton is sometimes too stiff and all poly too puffy, but it was a king sized batting that cost a lot of money so I'm tempted to "save" it for some future project, however considering how little quilting I do lately and how much it would cost to go out and buy something else, this is going to have to do.

I also used another quilting product that I bought some time ago but never used, foam pin covers called Pinmoors that I purchased from Leah Day's site since I don't like dealing with safety pins for basting but am tired of getting stuck by straight pins. Not as important with these small 12" blocks, but I'd hate to bleed on my fabric, so am hoping they work OK, too. Time will tell...

Starting to look like a quilt!

Had to take a photo of my design wall with my TWENTY anvil blocks on it since the sun finally came out yesterday and I think they deserve a blog post, but I am going to have to start digging through my Civil War fabric stash to see if I have enough fabric to back the 24 blocks I will have when I finish using up the pieces I got at that quilt shop all those years ago since I'm getting close to being ready to start quilting!

I will feel a bit sad when all my blocks are sewn together since I've really enjoyed working this way, not having to decide what fabrics or patterns to use, but rather following the instructions for this one block (nice to get into a rhythm and not have to think about what you are doing) and using all the pretty fabrics I got each month at the Flying Geese Quilt Shop (something I definitely prefer to choosing my own fabrics and making my usual mistakes with my choices). 

I'm not sure I would have chosen a lot of the fabric in my kits, esp. not the stripes that ended up being off kilter in most of my blocks since I only had a certain amount of fabric to work with and couldn't always orient things in the proper way, but I actually kind of like the way the blocks end up looking as a result of that limitation, more like the way a real Civil War quilt might have looked when people were having to "make do" with whatever fabric they had. 

The block below (obviously unpressed) is my least favorite since everything is so uneven, but even it has a certain "charm", at least to me, a far cry from the days where I thought everything had to be perfect, fabric, seams, etc., while now close is usually good enough.

Don't think I have any more packets left in my BOM stash since I'm pretty sure I used up all the other kits I was given for other projects I purchased in the past, I just never sewed them together since I didn't collect enough blocks for a quilt, but it will be a long time before I am ready to tackle another project, especially since I am having fun working at a slow pace for a change, so I am just going to continue to enjoy this quilt for a while longer.