winter pastime

I am in love with the process of paper piecing quilt blocks. With them I can work for a while and walk away from my machine and sit back down any time. Don't we all need a project that we can pick up and put down when those couple of free minutes beg to be put to good use??
Keeping in mind my goal for 2016 to use what I have… I spent some time pulling fabrics from my stash to organize a patriotic themed quilt.

Inspired by local quilter, designer, teacher, author Linda Halpin's quilt Pick Up Sticks I knew I had found the quilt block for my red, white and blue fabrics. Linda will say she and paper piecing don't get along so her quilt was not done by this method. I need more control over my seams so the pineapple block paper pattern is ideal for me.
Pick Up Sticks is made of pineapple blocks joined with sashing of rectangles and squares which continue the color placement of each pieced block.

With the pattern decided I went about precutting my fabrics to make stitching the blocks more user friendly and to avoid wasting too much of the fabric when trimming down each piece.

And then the first trial block.

I'll use the assembly of these blocks as I would relaxation meditations before and after the deeper concentration I'll need when quilting my Winter Solstice quilt top.