my productive day

So, a couple of years ago I did one of those "Block Party" things at a LQS -- you paid $5 or $10 to start and they gave you the fabric and pattern for a block; if you brought back the finished block the at the next meeting, you got the goods for the next block, and so on

The blocks were basically 9" blocks, but then they had these fancy little PITA corners they wanted you to add:
I didn't like the corner bits, so I made one set and basted them onto the new block every month so that I'd pass inspection...

And the blocks have been sitting in a stack waiting patiently ever since. I drafted several corner options but didn't really like any of them. Then, a few days ago, a discussion started up on the Stashbuster Yahoo list about Maple Island Quilts' BQ pattern, and how it had been used as a setting for orphan blocks. Yahoo! I've actually owned that pattern for years! I redrafted it in EQ to fit my 9" blocks instead of the 12" blocks it called for, and auditioned a bunch of stuff from the stash, and carted it all off to my mini-group date today...

et voila:
The "frames" are black with little metallic squares. I bought the fabric online a while back without realizing it was metallic, and I thought I'd never use it... but it's perfect for this!