How Did This Happen?

Four-patch Chain quilt from "Mini Charm Quilts" from Moda.

What? I was making a 'grow it' version of a Freddy and Gwen style quilt.  How did this happen?  It's a long story, beginning with the letter "S".  It is all Bonnie's fault.  At our February meeting, in Kuna, Bonnie showed some slides/videos about piecing letters of the alphabet.  I have pieced letters before, and I have always believed the letter "S" to be the most difficult to piece.  Bonnie left us with a challenge to piece your name, or some letters for the next meeting. As it happens, she was out of the country for the March meeting, and I was the only one who actually brought pieced letters to the meeting.  Is there something wrong with me?

 Well, I started with a grid and did piece the letter "S".  I used 1.5 inch squares, that when pieced became 1 inch squares.  Then, I had to piece something to go with the S to spell a word or something.  I decided to grow it into a Freddy Moran/Gwen Marston sort of creation, but limiting myself to red, white, and blue.  That did, indeed, take off, but then I wanted to do a pieced border with on-point four patches.  But first I needed an eye-resting border of very dark blue.  I had no very dark blue that would work, so I had to go to the Quilt Crossing and see if I could find some very dark blue fabric.  Well, I did.  I also found some wild animal fabric that was screaming out for the bright blue polka dot fabric to go with it.  So, I bought the fabulous wild animal fabric and bright blue polka dot fabric (which has nothing to do with my current project).  Then when I get home, I think, "This is blue! I could put it in my Freddy/Gwen style quilt.  My auditioning did not make me happy.  I also needed to know how to make the correct size of triangles to place my four-patches on point.  I checked the Four-patch Chain quilt in my (relatively new) book, and decided to do a dry-run to learn about the triangles and see how the bright blue polka dot fabric would look with other red, white, and blue fabrics.  I did the whole quilt top on Sunday.  I have figured out the triangle part (with no help from the pattern, as it did not address that part . . . and a few other parts), but decided the bright blue polka dots was probably not a good background fabric for the other four patch blocks.  I did accomplish my mission, with regards to the planning of my quilt growth.  Now back to growing my red, white, and blue quilt with the letter "S".  Bonnie . . .