The 9patch from .... (a hot place where they don't play hockey)

It's supposed to be simple!  Take a nine patch, sash it with muslin, attach it to another sashed nine patch and... you get the picture.  I've made far more intricate and complicated quilt blocks and tops with no trouble at all.  My sunflower quilt for example, each block had more than 100 pieces of fabric.  It went together without a single hitch.  What's the problem?

There!  That's the problem.  I finished sewing on the next row of blocks and in ironing and flipping the row, discovered that two blocks containing the same fabrics are side by side.  Arrrggghhhhh!  Now I know that random does not necessarily mean of equal distance from each other, but my only rule has been not to have two 9 patches containing the same fabric next to each other.  I spent quite a bit of time making sure of that with my strips.  But when I unsewed the strips, I must have switched some blocks around somewhere.  You have no idea how traumatic this discovery was.  It's as if the quilt top doesn't want to be made.  Then I noticed these two.

Now granted, they aren't exactly the same block.  After much muttering and considering of options, I decided not to worry about it.  That's right!  I'm going to leave it just the way it is.  This is a huge step for a perfectionist like me.  But in considering all the options I decided I could live with it just the way it is.  If I was intending to give this to someone, or enter it in a festival, I'd be busy ripping out that entire strip of blocks and saying some very rude words while I did so.  But, it's for me and it's scrappy and (let's face it) I've just about had it with this project.  It's certainly not an award winner and it has some strange fabric in it, like the axe-murderer block.  Take a look at the headless chickens and the blood red blocks.  Now if I'm not going to worry about this block, surely having two same fabric blocks next to each other should be no worry at all.

Another problem?  I've run out of leader and ender project.  The box by the sewing machine is now empty.

I finished sewing strip sets of the 1.5" x 6" strips that were in the box with the 9 patches.  Eeewww! There are some really hideous fabrics in here.  I'll be glad to see the last of these.

I ended up with 24 strips (5" x 18") and a about 12 (3" x 12").  I'm still thinking of using them in the String-X or Diamond Strings patterns at Quiltville but I might want them for borders on the 9 patch or the Ohio Star (both made with many of these fabrics).  And I certainly don't want to stop wrestling with the 9patch quilt top to start making blocks with the strip sets.  That would be the chicken's way out... or the headless chicken's way out.

I have to have a leader and ender project.  If I don't, the threads get all tangled and create ugly stump work on the back of what I'm sewing.

So I opened that box full of two-sies and started feeding them through my machine to make four-patches.  I originally blogged about them here.

Which means that overflowing box of four patches and sixteen patches is going to hit critical mass and explode soon.

Am I the only one who has these problems?  Thank goodness tomorrow is Crumb-Along Tuesday and I can work on something other than the possessed 9 patch.