Old blocks New quilts

Here's a picture or two of the one hundred plus blocks I found yesterday at the resale shop.

They are mainly pastels, plaids, old shirtings. Some are handsewn and some are not. Some are well done, some... well... not as nice.

When I find old blocks like these I feel like they should be used "as is".... as they were intended to be put together. Maybe the idea was to use a four patch then a solid, then another four patch.. ... OR maybe they were just going to stitched together, one four patch after another.

Putting the solid between them would definately be more my way of doing it. I don't like quilts to be too busy. Maybe a muslin or a Kona solid like snow? Hmmmm

So today I was out doing some errands and stopped into another resale hoping to find some rustic candlestick holders for Jenn's wedding. They'll be painted dark and then washed with an antique white... unless they're old silver.

SO I'm looking for that stuff (found a few) and I decided to check the sewing stuff.
I found another bag of blocks! Is this the time of year quilters clean out their drawers and sewing rooms? Well, these blocks are newer than yesterday's blocks.

There were 14 Friendship blocks, all signed but except one... and some were dated 1990. Some had cities also... local cities. I didn't recognize any of the quilters names but who knows... these ladies might be mothers, aunts, friends of my quilter friends up here. What a quandry... do I buy them?
As I dug farther through the bag, I found a handful of odd blocks... one of a kind... and then rolled up together was another group of 15 or so 9-patch blocks. These seem to be from the 70's and 80's. A few of them I liked really well, a few... UCK. The fabrics were cotton for the most part but not all.
So did I buy them? YUP. You know me, I just can't resist adding someone elses UFOs to my pile. I may give some of them away but I think I see a couple of quilts in there. After thinking about all of these, I think I'd like to keep the friendship blocks to make myself a quilt... it'll have ties to the past quilters in my area and that's a nice feeling.