Just when I feel like I'm getting down to the wire, that all the blocks left are "the hard ones," I come across one that isn't so tough. Except for the insets and odd angles, the contruction of A10 isn't too bad and the curves are very gentle. Failing that, I suppose you could make the "outside" border as a miter and applique the "horn" shaped pieces.

On the other hand, F1 was a still a bit of a challenge. I don't know that I will ever get perfectly joined centers. The concept I used with this one was that it was ultimately a square on point. The inner square was a 4-patch of half-square triangle, like a pinwheel, except each of the half-squares was also pieced.

In order to get moving on the triangles, I joined the Dear Jane mailinglist's Triangle Challenge run by Judy Miller. The first triangle, TR9 has only a few pieces, but if you get that middle diamond pieced upright instead of on its side, it can ruin your whole day.

I'm creeping up on my next landmark, and what should I spy? A 9-patch in disguise! And that's exactly how I went about making G13. I appliqued the "bumps" onto the light colored squares and just assembled the whole as a 9-patch making sure the "bumps" were facing the correct direction.

I took a copy of the chart on page 12 and extended it to include the triangles. It's certainly getting filled. Two rows only have one more block until they are finished, but Row F seems to have the most unfinished. I decided to concentrate my energies there. From what I've learned through doing the quilt so far, F10 was no big deal. I pieced the outside strips together and sewed the diamond units to those strips. That way the last two sections were a very gentle inset.

Row J was also one of those with more blocks to be done than average. Paging through the book and looking at the blocks, I noticed that J5 was very, very similar to A10. Personally, I think it came out better. Maybe I should have done it first.

The second Triangle Challenge was RS5. I "replaced" the pieced bottom triangles which Brenda took out. This block was a bit more challenging than the last one, but if you think of it as several inset squares the way the previous was inset diamonds, it wasn't too bad to piece.

I had started cutting this triangle out weeks ago because most of the blocks are simple squares. However, I was having trouble with the edge pieces which make it ultimately a triangle. I hadn't planned on picking up the Dear Jane template set, and, indeed, I don't find much use for the square template, but I really think the triangle template is rather helpful. It probably would have taken another month for me to cut this one out without them.