Thanks for the new welcomes!
Littlehud, I've been admiring that quilt in your avatar with the kitties on it every time I see one of your posts. Those colors are lovely. At some point, I want to doa quilt in those colors. (I don't have kitties, but mybe I can borrow a few to make the quilt look right.)
Pats8e8, what a charming picture of your dogs! They're cute enough to win a photo contest, I think. I'll take a look at the BOMs, but I'm nowhere near that level yet. At some point, I'd love to try them; they sound like so much fun.
quiltncrazy, your mouse avatar is darling! Wherever did you find it? Or did you create it yourself? I don't think it's goofy to change up designs to suit yourself. I'm using book and online block patterns for most of my sampler quilt blocks. I'm not tracing out templates for the geometric ones, since those can be measured and just rotary cut, but I'll use a book pattern template for at least one block, an applique wreath. I'm drawing out all the blocks at the actual size to see how they look. Something that looks fine as a thumbnail print or book picture might look to thick or whatever - also it saves me from all those geometric calculations I'd have to do. (I actually tried working out the length of an on point square using the Pythagorean theorem. Bleahhh! So much easier to draw it out and measure the result.)
Well, I did find the 12' x 12' graph paper at Jo-Ann, but as I posted earlier, it's expensive and you only get 20 hseets, so I have regular-sized graph paper for planning out quilts.
Yes, I will be using sashing. I guess I'd planned to use a solid for it, but I guess I'll wait until all or at least most of the blocks are finished before worrying ahout it.