Trick Or Treat - My Reward System

I must admit, keeping myself motivated to work on Star Wars this late in the game with a deadline looming (my friend is due today, but fortunately she hasn't gone in yet) has required some mental trickery. I was downright depressed that Star Wars' slow speed was keeping me from playing with sexy new fabrics piecing and free motion quilting, so finally I cracked and gave myself permission to work on another quilt in parallel. 2 sessions of star wars blanket stitching = 1 fun with fabric day. Here's what I did

I have been hanging onto this little "stacker" of Trick Or Treat (by Doodlebug Designs) since last October. It is 24 10" squares of ghosts and candy and stars and damask, in a variety of oranges, blacks, greens and purples I find completely irresistible, and have fondled it often since receiving it. I mean seriously - just look at some of the fabrics!

Originally I thought I'd cut up the 10" squares into charms and make a basic charm quilt. Then I realized there's a striped print in this line, and I've been meaning to remake Sunset Surprise in another palate:  I can run a striped print through my charm quilt and get the same effect, wouldn't that be cute?

And of course, after a little more thinking, I realized I if I was bisecting half my block with stripes anyway, it was possible to get bigger blocks out of my ten-inch stacker as follows:

Cutting guide for Trick or Treat assuming 1-1/4" stripes. Yes, I figured this out myself.  And yes, this kind of quilt geekery makes me happy

This led to me being able to make on "main block" (a 6-3/4" square), one "Stripe" block (also 6-3/4" square, but with a 3/4" stripe down the center) and have a little left over for a cornerstone where my striped lines would intersect.

I'll admit I did cheat and use backing fabric for the cornerstones instead though, so they would also look like one continuous block.

Making those blocks provided a delightful diversion from Blanket Stitching 'til forever last weekend, and this weekend it made up into this:

Pieced dimensions are about 42 x 48. I still need to piece the backing. Then it's cross my fingers and hope for some FMQ inspiration!