Summer Sampler Series - The First Three

Has anyone else been following this quilt along? I first read about it on Faith's blog,  fresh lemons (although there are three blog hosts contributing) & I think the striking solid colour mock-ups are what convinced me to give it a try! I mean, just look at that awesome badge over there -->  I can't wait to see Faith's quilt all finished up in those colours.

Having finished the first 3 blocks & spending some time looking through the flickr group, I have to say that the solid fabric blocks are my favourite! If I had them on me, I'd use them too. Which is actually shocking to me as I am using one of my all time favourite collections, Modern Meadow. It just looks so good in solids!

This will be a quilt for myself  :)
Here are my first 3 blocks.

North Star, Greek Cross & Mosaic

These blocks are growing on me... I think my issue is that I am not used to this type of piecing so I'm not able to visualize what the block will end up looking like, which makes fabric selection more like guesswork. If I were making more than one block with the same design, I could play around with the fabrics a little more, mix & match to see what I like best.

 I'm not even sure you could call what I have done in my quilting career up to this point 'piecing'. My strip quilts & 'make it up as I go' patterns are so much easier than this! These are the first triangles I've ever done. I was laughing through the first 2 blocks, but 'mosiac', with all those HST (half square triangles)?! omg. That was so not fun! I am finding my 1/4" seam is not very accurate & that threw off everything. I only let myself rip out one line of stitching that desperately needed it. For everything else I am reminding myself that this quilt is for me & it doesn't have to be perfect.

I hope to tackle the next two tonight. After all the HST's of block #4, I will be so grateful to try paper piecing! So many firsts here for me. It may not feel comfortable yet, but I'm happy to be learning a few things & challenging myself to the point where I *feel* the challenge, but I don't want to throw my sewing machine out the window. Yet.