1930s reproduction quilt: progress!

Went to "late night" (aka stitch-n-bitch) this week at Something to Crow About.  Finished one more block for the 1930s reproduction quilt I am making.

Before:  the original block was awkwardly bordered.  There was a sister block of the same Friendship Star, so I wanted to make them more matchy-matchy.  (The 21 challenge blocks I received were made by many hands, with many fabrics.  I feel justified in trying to unify things a bit by tweaking.)

After: it matches the sister Friendship Star block, and has enough of a border to not look out-of-place with the other blocks.

And, along the way, made some decisions about the overall layout of the quilt.  (We'll see how many times I change my mind before now and Quilt Camp/Retreat at the end of the month.)

This was one of my attempts to lay things out with the one block on-point, some green sashing and some of the smaller block pieces put in.  I had been totally hooked on having a central medallion from the one Basket block.  I played and played with ideas of how to do this single on-point setting.  A couple months ago, I referred to books for help with this:  Smashing Sets- Exciting ways to arrange quilt blocks by Margaret Miller; Setting Solutions by Sharyn Craig; Sensational Settings- Over 80 ways to arrange your quilt blocks by Joan Hanson (all available from my local library).  I really wanted the central area to be very white, as I love the crisp white areas of 1930s quilt designs.

Had an AHA! moment when explaining my desire for "lots of white" in the central area: several of the blocks feature white backgrounds.  How about, instead of agonizing about the Basket block and its need for an on-point setting, I just place all the blocks with white backgrounds in the center, and all the more colorful blocks around the outside, like a picture frame?  Eureka!

Shift in focus: smaller, partial block pieces need to be made into full-size blocks.  I only need one more white-background block, so the coffee cup blocks (my own design!) will be put into more colorful settings.  I have a game plan!

So ready for Quilt Camp.  Two weeks to go.