A little Nuts for Fussy Cuts

I've been digging in to my Civil War repro stash to make more little blocks for the Tiny Nine Patch challenge.  As I've been going along,  I began to get excited about being able to showcase the tiniest of fabric motifs within the squares by fussy cutting.

After a while, I intentionally sought out fabrics with larger motifs and patterns that have always been a challenge for me to use in small blocks.

Here are some of the nine patch blocks and their original fabrics:

I love the circular motion you get with the curly-cues in the bottom one.

The one on the top looks like fireworks.  The one on the bottom is much more subtle.

Those brown boxy shapes in the outermost corners of the turquoise blocks should disappear into the seam allowance after sewing.

Same fussy cut but in two different locations in the block.

Love the top one, but the bottom one looks like it's staring at me! 

I had to cut these ones on the bias to get the directional fabric I wanted.

The block on the bottom is a cropped photo to show how the finished block will look.

Only had a small piece of this fabric, but had to use it at least twice to take advantage of the design. And I think I might have to revisit the piece I have left to use the geometric pink stripe.

This is another favorite.  In the top block I paired it with another fussy cut from a different fabric to get the diamond shape in the center and background squares.  In the bottom one, I used it for the central square.

Sometimes it takes a little imagination to picture what part of the fabric will be highlighted in the block and what part will be taken up into the seam allowance.  For example, these two blocks had tan borders on them before sewing that disappeared after sewing:

One of the tools I've been using to choose where to cut the fabric is a Tucker Trimmer ruler that has marks for quarter inches.   The squares for these little blocks are cut at 1 1/4 inches, and the crosshair "X" on the ruler is great for helping to line up the central motif.

Fabric play for this project is a lot of fun, but pulling out so many fabrics has left my sewing room  table look like a disaster area:

I couldn't imaging making such a mess every week in order to create just 10 blocks as per the challenge, so while the fabrics were all out I went ahead and cut fabric sets for 80 more blocks and put them aside so that each week I can just pick out 10 and sew them up.

I am aiming for a 9 X 11 block layout, so those 80, plus the 20 I have already made, should be enough plus one extra for good measure.

Linking up to Finished (or not) Friday and Scrap Happy Saturday