Beacon Light Becomes Beacon Blight Once I Get My Hands On It

This week's quilt block was a challenge for sure. When it comes to quilts I am not very creative. When presented with a layer cake I am more likely to think "Oh, I'll just sew all these big squares together" instead of "I can cut this up and create an interesting layout." Quilting is one of those things where I need to be told what to do. When I saw the instructions for this block my first thought was "I'm not doing this!" But I'm glad I did. It took me waaaay out of my comfort zone, though.

The block layout is very simple in and of itself. The hard part is that you have to make your own fabric. Not weave and dye it, but sew all kinds of crazy patchwork that you cut and reassemble over and over until you have something that doesn't really look possible. I'm not sure if I did it "right," if there is a right way to do this. I just dumped out my scrap bag and did whatever. Here's the finished block:

It's an improvement over last week because you can see more of the star, but I should have nixed any of the white prints and stuck with the reds to make it stand out more. This baby is seam-a-licious; it was beastly to iron at times and I'm curious what it's going to be like to quilt over those thick folds. Here's what it looks like from the back:

Since I kept cutting willy-nilly some of my pieces got munched into a seam and then cut off during the trimming.  The center of the block looks like one hot mess of patchwork.

As I was moving along I was really liking the "fabric" I was creating. I was tempted to just keep going with it and not make the finished block at all, but my curiosity won out and I made it as directed. Looking at the pictures I kind of wish I had just left it:

The one on the bottom becomes the center of the block. The one on the top gets hacked to make quarter square triangles. I would certainly not make an entire quilt using this method. I am hoping this week's block is a bit easier as I don't know if I can take another night of this. It took a loooong time.

Everything I sewed this week was either in black/gray or kind of tough (like this block). I need to go scrounge me up something that is fun and colorful...