You Asked–Here Are My Answers

People here (and on Flickr) were curious to see the block(s) made from the drawing I posted on Sunday.  Here's my first finished block.

After making the templates and cutting fabrics for two blocks, I saw how two of the smallest pieces could be combined into one. 

On Monday I made the new template, cut more fabrics, as well as fabrics for a third block and Slow Stitch Sunday grew into Slow Stitch Monday night.

These blocks are 7-1/2 inches (finished size).  I have made 3 each of 12 patterns.  I drafted the last one because somehow I never received it and my attempts to reach out to the quilter who organized this quilt-along in 2010 failed.

The process of drafting the block by hand was fun.  Maybe later this year, if anyone is interested, I'll put together a tutorial for anyone who would like to give it a try.

I have left the decision of the color of the outside of the last two blocks until I have pulled out all the completed blocks and put them on the design wall to see what color/fabric will work best in the context of the whole quilt. (I couldn't make myself wait on the first one–it really just had to be red).

If you are looking for method in my brightly color madness, the rule I created for myself when choosing fabrics for these blocks was that they all contained the Laurel Burch fabric and a black and white print.  Every block also contains at least one warm and one cool color.   I challenged myself to work with a lot of bright colors in this project.

Another mystery solved:

It is a sentiment that I thought women of a certain age (like me) or fans of Nora Ephrom–whose book, Sometimes I feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, inspired this idea–would recognize.

Someone asked why I was making all the e's the same size when I clearly had different sized letters.  Now that they've been arranged and sewn into words and phrases, you can see that the two different sizes are used in different words.