Absolute fearlessness about setting in blocks is required for F12, which reminds me of a Maltese Cross. Strangely enough it wasn't the pieces inset into other pieces (as opposed blocks inset into the seams between pieces as in G8 and B9.) No, what I struggled with was all of those points convering in the center. I was certain I would end up with a mountain (or a drain!).

I counted up my finished blocks and came up with two more than I thought I had. It took an hour to figure out which ones were missing. I1, a simple 4-patch with two 9-patches was among the missing. Maybe I got it confused with one of the other compound 9-patches.

Lots of little Flying Geese make this 9-patch derivative look much more complicated than it actually is. I can't help but wonder if machine piecing it would be easier with the speed Flying Geese methods I've found online.

H5 is more complicated than it looks. In Brenda's book, it's also drawn slightly wrong. In the original quilt the 4 triangles that make up the quarter square are all the same size, so that's how I pieced them. I should have paid more attention to where the bias edges were, but since there was a border, I didn't feel the need, though it might be a problem if I was machine piecing the quilt.

Hold your breath. There's lots of blocks that can only be done by applique, B1 among them. My last attempt at applique was somewhat disappointing, but this time I when the "prepared" route, ironing the edges under before stitching the disks onto the background. I'm alot happier with the results of this block than the last applique block.

I really liked the way this block looked in the photograph. It was a little frustrating to discover that it was drawn wrong in the book, but after redrawing it, I was fairly confident about the results. Overconfident as it turned out as it seems to have shifted a bit with pressing.

E10 is another applique block. The corners of my "melons" are not as pointy as they probably should be because I prepared them for applique in a similar fashion as I did the disks in B1. The one smart thing I did was to piece the two-patch before doing the applique. I was able to get the edges of the melons much closer to the seams than I would have otherwise. The melons in Brenda P's book, like the ones I did, seem much larger than Jane's actual pieces.

I8 was more fun than I expected it to be. It's a square on point on point on point... The only problem with this one was to be careful where to put the triangles which form the outside points. If you don't get them dead on, the block looks very strange.