Two American hero tops in the making etc.

Robin had sent me a nice stack of partially prepared shaded 4-patch blocks (among an assortment of other finished blocks that I'll show below) to use for American Hero tops. I went right ahead and finished the blocks and squared them up to 7" and put 4 of these units together in one larger block.




Here I was playing around with a layout option of the blocks.








With the amount of blocks that I have I'll be making this center for a top. In this picture I simply laid out the pieces to take a picture last evening, I'll try to get everything sewn together over the weekend. Today I will have to purchase some more fabric for the setting triangles for two quilts and the border.







This is the second version I'll sew up.
Michelle likes the first center better, I like this one. :o)










The border fabric I intend to use on these is the same I used for several other quilts. It seems to really pull out the colors of all blocks.
The rail fence top is another American Hero top. It's ready to be mailed, but I'll mail it together with the other two tops as soon as they are finished.
In this picture are some more of the blocks that Robin had sent and I was playing around with them to see how I could incorporate all of the different sizes into one top. I don't know yet if I want to float the blocks on a white or blue background, but might have a clearer thought about that once the other two tops are completed.



Here is my completed "1st quilt", well complete, other than the label. I couldn't find Bubble jet set anywhere around here, so I ordered some yesterday online. Once I have that, I'll print a label out for this and quite a few other quilts, like the deployment quilt, on which the quilting is also finished. The binding is attached by machine on it, so now I just need to sew the binding to the back by hand. Another quilt I'm sewing the binding on by hand right now is the Lone Star wall hanging, so things are moving along nicely and I should be able to finish quite a few more UFO's by the end of the year. :o)