I'm starting Ellens Sewing Basket Quilt from Minick and Simpson. Some of the fabric will be Independence Trail as the pattern suggests and some will be French General and other civil war FQs I have in my stash. Also picked up a few new pieces at work today ...you know I can't go home with at least a LITTLE piece of something! ;)

This is the first block of 16 I'm going to make.... well maybe 16. I may stray from the pattern a bit because if I make 9 blocks and then make a border all the way around with 1/2 blocks, the 9 will center on my bed nicer.... we'll see..

These blocks are a bit of a challenge to make. The first attempt at this block I used the English paper piecing method but I wasn't happy with the way it was going. And, it was SLOW.

After reading a bunch of magazine articles and online suggestions, I decided that Minick and Simpson's way of doing the block was probably the easiest. I'm sure they went and tested all the different ways prior to making the pattern but I just have to do everything the hard way.... had to see for myself.

In an old copy of Quilter's Newsleter, I did find one interesting article on lone star blocks (which this is). They suggested that you draw the 9 piece diamond (8 of these diamonds make up the star block) on a piece of paper the exact size it will be before being set together... then BLOCK each section of the star to the drawn paper block. Using a starch sprayed on the diamond allows you to block the pieces so that each of the 8 diamonds is the same size. This helps ALOT! The other really good suggestion is to handle the pieces as little as possible so the bias edges don't stretch out of shape. Also press and starch your fabric BEFORE cutting so that it's a little stiff and doesn't want to stretch as easily.

So that's not all I was shopping for today. The quilt shop got in these little "Candy" sized pieces of Marmalade from Moda. LOVE THIS FABRIC! So I picked one up for someone that likes this line. Isn't it cute?!