Joining Up With a QAL

I have been wanting to join a quilt-a-long for awhile now, but there are certain requirements that have to be met (by me) before I commit to anything.  Diane, over at Butterfly Threads, mentioned a new QAL starting up at Bloomin' Workshop that sounds perfect for me.  I mean, absolutely, totally up my alley.  I immediately checked it all out and then made myself wait several days before jumping in with both feet.*wink 

8" baskets with handles prepped

First of all, I'm a laid back kind of gal so I'm not interested in anything high pressure or big requirements for fancy fabrics etc.   These sentences on the explanation page particularly caught my attention and made me smile "  This should be a fun, relaxed and laid back quilt-along. No pressure. Just enjoy the process!" 

Baskets finished & on the wall

When can I get started?  hehe  Another requirement that needs to be met before I commit is:  It's got to be a project that I already have on my 'Someday' list.  This Random Sampler QAL appears to be from the 'Liberated Medallion Quilt' by Gwen Marston, which I have, love and desperately want to use.  Points for that.

Where everything starts out...

The other requirements may seem kind of vague to you, but they are real to me.  I don't want to commit to anything that requires me to make any large fabric/pattern or tool purchases.  I'm trying to dig deep into my stash and be as frugal as possible these days.  The only thing lacking for this QAL is maybe some background fabrics of which I can buy a fat quarter or two at a time if I need to.  Check.

And last but not least, since I'm on this Use-It-Up-And-Be-Frugal kick.... I dug through my orphan blocks to see if there was anything to jump start a new project.  I just love to rescue cast-offs and discards!  There was a large applique block that I had abandoned for some strange reason, quite a few small hst's in lovely homespuns my sister had dumped on me years ago, and a stack of larger hst's leftover from a border issue on one of my previous quilts.  Yes!  And they all look like they could play very nicely together.  You can see where I have already started picking and choosing fabrics to introduce into the new project using the applique block as the base.

Obviously, the project starts out with basket blocks.  One of my baskets has extra piecing in the background fabric because I didn't have enough of that fabric to cut the rectangle properly.  That is the way I intend to approach this entire quilt.  Hopefully it will end up with an old fashioned 'make-do' charm that doesn't look all contrived and fake!