Auditioning Backgrounds for my Nine Patch

This is a "repurposed" UFO that I've just started to work on again.  I cut the fabric over a year ago for a different project.  Since then I have become a convert to using washed fabrics, and none of these fabrics were washed.  I also recently realized that I made a cutting error, and cut the wrong proportion of large squares to small squares.  Then finally, I decided that it would be better to paper piece the original design, using washed fabrics.

So, what to do with all these unwashed squares?  I decided a basic nine patch would use up some of the small squares, and I will try to wash the remaining large squares to use in the paper pieced quilt.

My only remaining question was what fabric to use for the background squares.  The first is the Redwork Toile by Alex Anderson:

And the second is from the Jubilee Garden collection from Connecting Threads:

It is interesting how different they look in photos compared to real life!  In real life I immediately preferred the second one, which looks kind of plain in the photo.  But upon reflection I still will use the second one.  I don't like the way the darker lights seem to clash with the toile, and even in the photo you can see it is too busy.  The toile is beautiful, I'm sure I will think of a better use for it.

This is yet another quilt to finish before I start Sedona Star!  But I cannot order the fabric until after January 1st, so that gives me a little extra time.  In any case, Sedona Star will come first, and this quilt is in the "nice to have" category, but not essential.

Edward's quilt

Here is my progress so far on Edward's quilt.  Edward is my brother-in-law, and this quilt started as sort of a "thought challenge."  Edward is a very urban guy, not at all country, and not a big fan of a lot of colour either.  So all the usual men's quilts that you see, with moose or fish or tractors, would not at all be appropriate.  He is a snowboarder, but I knew that wouldn't be right for their uptown house either.  I wondered if it would even be possible to design a quilt he would like.

I decided on a black, white and taupe colour scheme, and started to search my go-to website, eQuilter.  When I found this fabric, I started to have the germ of the idea:

The Asian warriors were sufficiently "manly" without being kitschy.  Edward and my sister met in a Tae Kwon Do class, so that was appropriate too.  This fabric will be the border, although I am now a little worried that the wine coloured circles will clash with the brighter Chinese red of the other fabrics.  So many of the co-ordinates that I found had kanji or other Asian scripts on them, that I decided to use only them for the rest of the quilt.  I am always a little concerned about using script that I cannot read - if you read Hanzi Smatter you know what I mean - but I hoped that quilt fabric would be pretty safe.

The design has also gone through some variations.  The original plan was Sawtooth Stars (which seem to be my favourite block), but then I saw this design in Carrie L. Nelson's Schnibbles book, and knew it would be perfect.  I had to buy more fabric, of course!

Sadly, this quilt has been a UFO for about a year, but I am really hoping to get it done before work gets intense on Sedona Star.  Did you all see this Zits cartoon this week?  It hit close to home!