One more quilting book

365 Fun-To-Stitch Quilt Blocks just came in the mail today.

I ordered it after doing the Lena's Choice block. I googled to see if I could find a way to do this block more simply, and I found this book. It's another great find, in my opinion. It divides the blocks into the following categories: Strips and Pieces, The Good Old Days, In the Garden, All God's Creatures, Nature's Glory, Beneath the Stars, Around the World and Blessed & Beloved. Each section contains several projects made from blocks in that section.

It also includes a sampler quilt for each section.

Then it goes into a description of how to piece each of the blocks, including pictures of the block and lists the required templates. 

Full-size templates are found at the end of each chapter, for ones that are used only for a specific block, 

or at the back of the book for common templates that are used in numerous blocks. 

All of the blocks are 12", so are interchangeable for the projects.
And yes, it has templates for Lena's Choice, though I still don't know if I will do this block again. It was a lot of work, and though it will be simpler with the templates, I'm actually a little happier with my original block now. If you recall, not only did it end up smaller than it was intended to be, so that I had to add a border, but I felt it was a little too busy without any background fabric. And the worst thing was that the centre ended up puckered. I had a bit of a mole hill in the middle. Meanwhile, after constructing my Maple Leaf block I started worrying about colour bleeding. The reds I had used in that block were cheaper fabric. So I tested a piece of the fabric by swishing it in some water in the bathroom sink. Uh oh - pink water. Then I got to thinking that I had several cheaper fat quarters and had used some of them in Lena's Choice as well. So I washed all of these fabrics (not all at the same time, of course), including the two or three blocks that I had already used them in. When I pressed the Lena's Choice block after washing, a lot of the puckering came out of the centre, which pleased me immensely. It looks much better now. Not only that, but I really didn't have the bleeding problems that I was worried about, even without colour catchers. But it's still better to be safe than sorry. And I intend to make my own colour catchers soon... now that I have my supplies. 
Meanwhile, I've finished most of the top for my grandson's quilt. I just have to decide if I want to put a border on it or not. I have enough fabric. I just wasn't sure if I'd have enough of the bandana fabric for the binding if I increased the size of the quilt by adding a border. Thanks to the Quilter's Paradise Binding Calculator, I now know that I have plenty. 
I took a break from quilt piecing to brush my cats this evening. I never used to get around to brushing them - and one of them is long-haired! But now I know that if I take the time to brush them, I spend less time cleaning up hairballs and vomit. And they actually love it, spoiled brats. They each think they should be the one getting brushed. Even though I have two slicker brushes (I actually found the second one when I was organizing my sewing room), it's rather difficult to brush two cats at once. Especially when they keep moving around while I'm brushing them, and not generally in the same direction. They're both sleeping on the bed behind me and I need to head off to dreamland soon as well. Good night for now.