Partial St. Paul Blocks and Sheer Madness

I picked up a oldish quilting book at a second hand store earlier in the summer. A block called 'St. Paul' almost jumped off the page at me while I was flipping through and that's all it takes for me to buy a cheap quilting book. Seriously, it had a really interesting antique-ish look to it that I looove, but looking closer at the details was all it took to kill my enthusiasm. Set-in seams? Not for this girl...

Partial St. Paul blocks ready to start sewing...

Then Ellen over at Little Jewel Quilts starting posting about her Winding Ways blocks which have a similar look to the St. Paul blocks. That made me go back and take another long look. Hmmm... Maybe? Just a few?  I considered a stack of fabric that I have been having difficulty finding a pattern for. I waffled about and then finally I made a test block because obviously I was taken over by alien life forces that day.

The first two test blocks

The St. Paul block actually has more piecing on each side of the block which sets it on-point--not what I wanted for this quilt. So.. after more consideration,  I graphed it out and made a much larger block just using the portion of the block that I liked. Well..., then it lost it's antique-ish look, the main draw for me. Once again, everything went on hold and I worked on other stuff. Besides, I do know my limitations and set-in seams are for the more experienced sewist. Even I know that.

Back to the original size and now sewn up in
my chosen colors....

Until one day I guess I forgot about my limitations. Because I just jumped in and started tracing the templates onto fabric and cutting like a mad-woman. I think my hand still hurts from wielding the scissors so much. It's beyond me how I ended up in this predicament. Who is this woman and what happened to her in the past several years? lol  You'll notice my first (blue & orange) blocks turned out okay. Not terrific because the seams are too smooshed together in the center. The second block is a bit better but then I have a wrinkly look towards the outside of the block. There is definitely room for improvement. Hello? We're talking about me and set-in seams, which I always avoid like the plague. Obviously....