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...