Shattered Italian Tile-Tutorial

Well, here is my first new 'page' in this blog. I hope this works out and you enjoy this.
I'm finally sewing again (it's been a busy season in work, so limited time awake leaves NO time for sewing) and I thought I'd take the leftover 3.5" strips from our lasagna quilts and continue in some fashion to make something, maybe a little different. I saw a post on Alycia's blog regarding making rail fence blocks for Veteran's day QOV quilts and I would have done it the 'right way', but I was using lasagna strips, so instead of sewing them along their long sides to make a 4 strip set, I sewed them end to end (lasagna quilt-style). After a couple of strips, I realized my mistake, but then decided to keep going. I could still make them into a 4 strip set, just the hard way. (I'm always doing things by the seat of my pants, lol). After sewing all the leftover strips were sewn end to end, I folded the longggggg strip in half and sewed down one long side...one LONG side..... I cut open the folded end (when I got there) and opened it up (now I had a (still) long strip, only 2 strips wide. I folded it again in half (from one end to the other), sewed down the long side until I got to the folded end, then cut the fold, opened it up and now I have what is here... a 4 strip set.

Since the strips were different lengths, the seams (end to end) could be anywhere. This lead me to a nice place, but also presented it's own problems as you'll see later.

This is the very long 4 strip-set. Now, I wasn't sure if all my seams were exact and I don't think I cared, since the quilt tends to design itself with me, mostly,... so I decided to make the blocks 12" square. Yup, not 12.5", ... 12". You can do whatever you want to yours. In fact, you can even use different sized strips. Since I never actually measured the original length, I can't help with the end results. I figure, if I don't make it big enough, I can always add borders.
Since I cut the 12" blocks, one by one...continuously, I found sometimes in the cutting process, I came across a small edge of a strip that would have almost disappeared into the seam (when sewing the blocks together), so I moved the ruler a little further to cut the next 12" square block.



Notice the 6" line on the ruler is on the middle seam.

Sometimes, you trim off the 'little edge' (bottom row on the right).
This is the blocks as they got cut off the long strip set.

Here are a few of the blocks. See how different they look. Hhhmmmm.... this could be good.
The only thing I figured out is that you don't want the broken parts of the 'rails' to be too small or they disappear.
Once you have all your blocks cut, lay on on top of the other, with the seams on both blocks, running horizontal, matching them up (I separated them so you could see the seams lined up).
I tried to fold back the top block, diagonally, so I could see what the finished block would look like. I lifted it up (shown) and then lifted the top right side down to see the other block's preview. there were a few times I exchanged blocks because I didn't like the way the finished block would look. It's nice to have an uneven number of blocks in case one block just doesn't 'play nicely with anyone else'. You can always use that block for the back label.


At the very end, you may end up with a section not big enough for another block, so put it in the 'scrap pile'.

After laying two blocks together, right sides together to make a set, draw a pencil line diagonally, from top left to bottom right on each set of blocks. This is your cutting line, but not just yet.

   
Sew 1/4" on either side of the pencil line, then cut on the pencil line and open up your blocks. These below are a few of the samples of my finished blocks.  

I had quite a little pile of them (16 blocks) and a few scraps left over. (I'll probably use them in a Mile-a-Minute quilt).
Now is the true test.... I put the blocks up on the design wall, a few different ways. I haven't decided how I'd like to see them put together, but I'm hoping anyone checking out this tutorial can help decide.

This is what I'd call "Lasagna in a Box". (choice 1) 

This one is what I'd call, "Shattered Italian Tile".. (choice 2)
This one is the last combination that I'd call, "Shattered Star above Italy". It's using the Lasagna quilt theme for the Italian reference.


I hope you can help me decide how to put it together. I'm leaning towards the last one, but each one has it's own personality. I will add a Black border and maybe some 2strip wide strip sets of this same color scheme as an outer border. But that may change as my quilts tend to 'tell me' what they need....lol (Have I lost it, or what?)
Here is the finished result....