split 9 patch - Michigan Left

With the kitties napping for a bit, I needed something else to do :S .. I pulled out my stars from the Sunny Swap that I did measure and sort by size; I even went as far as to pull out my blues and yellows for framing them. But the oomph to do it, just wasn't there. I also have a pattern kicking around in my head for a little swap that I'm going to do, but the idea has totally gelled yet. I open QuiltPro and fuss and delete and add and fuss and delete - nope that's not ready to come to me yet - close, just not quite there.

So I started to think about the Carolina Byways Quilt (split 9 patch) on about.com. Okay, I'm in - I've been itching to try this. So I pulled almost all my fabrics out and picked and pulled and decided on my first 6 colours (darks and lights). It went together REALLY fast! I really liked the look of it too. Only thing, this came out to 6" finished :\ .. I like this pattern, but I don't really want to do 37 of these things so it fits my king size bed .. I am going to fiddle with the math so i can end up with at least an 8 or 10" block .. Each set of cuttings gives you 4 blocks. Makes up really quick this way as it's all strip piecing and cutting. If you can work the seams to marry properly (I got 1 married - 1 not), then the final seam won't be so bulky.

I orginally laid it out as as a variable star and only had 1 set of 4 left to go - so to take a break I sat on my table and started to play with my blocks .. I twisted and turned and spun, and this image started to resolve itself - I instantly thought Michigan Left (For those that aren't aware of this anamoly, as Michigan is the only state in the nation to use them, please check out the link).
So, if this stays this way (won't get bigger), that's what I'm going to call this one :D

I tried to have each block share some colour somewhere with at least 1 or 2 sets. I needed to do 24 colour choices, 6 per set (3 light & 3 dark). And I also got more string scraps out of this - naw - I don't have a method to my madness ..

Heh .. i've already figured out how I'm going to quilt this based on it's name .. I'm going to do a log cabin pattern that is tilted off canter ;)