FNSI Results - a little swoon

It seems like every quilter on the internet has made a Swoon quilt, and I wanted one, too.  Never mind that I've never done piecing this complicated, that I struggle to match seams on even the simplest patchwork, and that the fabric I'm planning to do it in is a fat eighth bundle (Kate Spain Good Fortune) so I drafted the pattern for a 12-inch finished block instead of 24 inches.  It sounded like a recipe for disaster, so for Friday Night Sew-in last night, I decided to do a test block with some leftover fabric from other projects. 

It actually turned out really well!  My flying geese and half-square triangles were pretty close to perfect (close enough that I decided to be lazy and not square up the HSTs), and although not all of the seams and points are matched perfectly, they're pretty good - certainly better than I expected, and better than I usually manage.  I actually think it's easier to match seams on a small scale than with larger pieces, although if I pinned at least every inch on larger-scale patchwork, I probably wouldn't have as much of a problem.  The points aren't perfect, but almost all of them are floating rather than cut off, which in my subjective opinion (I have no idea what the quilt-world consensus is on this issue) is the better option.  The block unfinished block measures 12 5/8 to 12 3/4" square, and I think if I had bothered to square up the HSTs it would have been right on! 

My confidence is bolstered!  I realized, though, that when I start it with the intended fabric, this quilt is probably going to take me a year to piece.  I don't think I'll even be able to do a block a week.  By the end of this block, I was pretty tired of focusing on it.  Probably it is a better idea to cut out all the  pieces and make the flying geese and HSTs, then finish squaring them up and sewing the block together another (maybe two other) day (s).

I'm linking up for Friday Night Sew-In at Crafty Vegas Mom.