Thanks for your welcomes, everyone!
I guess I should mention that I'm in Central PA.
:::waving west towards Iowa, sw to CA, se to NC (twice), nw to WA, ne to NY, over the waters to Ireland and over the border to NE CA (assuming CA here means Canada and not California) :::
I'm so impressed by the quilt pics some of you have as avatars (Jim's Gem, Crafty1, Lacelady, Ninnie). dvseals, your little ones are just beautiful, and your cat is gorgeous, feline fanatic!
I found 12 x 12 graph paper at Jo-Ann's Fabrics, bought it, but so expensive! $6 & change gets you only 20 sheets. I had a 50% off coupon, but still....
Moonpi, thanks for telling me that printable graph paper exists online. My printer seems to be irrevolcably out of order, and I don't think it does 12 x 12 sheets anyway, but if I can save the graph paper onto my hard drive, I can design away in Windows Paint for now.
Crafty 1 and SharonC, I looked up EQ6 and am just drooling! I suppose since I'm just doing basic blocks at first it can wait, but it's on my wish list.
Feline fanatic, to me a sampler quilt is the quintessential learning project. It would be more ambitious for me to make a regular quilt, IMO. I can tell everyone that all the flaws are because each block was a learning experience for me. <g> Your beginner class must have taught you quite a bit! I see doing the LeMoyne Star as one of my later blocks, when I have more experience. I'm just awed that you're even attempting a Mariner's Compass! Do you have pics yet?
Btw, thanks for the link. I've been using this website's blocks, playing with them, choosing ones for y sampler.
Lacelady, I'll look for the Lynne Edwards book. I have one from the library, The Book of Sampler Quilts by Dorothy Frager. It has some good info and photos of sampler quilts, but not all the info I want.
As for my colors, the problem is that each block has its own color theme, but the blocks won't all coordinate color wise. Well, one step at a time.
Right now, I'm struggling with the triangles on the Fair and Square block, which I thought was as simple as you could get without doing all straight lines. It took me forever to realize I didn't need templates, just to measure and rotary cut. Then my triangle fabric turned out not to be 100% cotton, which I found out when the iron started to melt it. It's a hard-to-find color, too, the yellow-orange of a school bus or Crayola crayon box. Jo-Ann's doesn't have it in all cotton. I bought the closest shade, but it's just too yellow.