What will someone else think of next?

The deeper I get into the quilting world, the more I realize that whatever I think of has already been thought of (and named) by someone else. And that's okay, I'm not here to demonstrate that I have original thoughts... I just want to make nice looking quilts and share those quilts with you!

Still, the above revelation has come to me twice recently. Last week as I was arranging the blocks on an upcoming gift quilt, I thought "Hey, this looks a bit like a Bento quilt!" So I googled it, and yep... that's pretty much how you make a bento quilt! I was going to call it a "Disappearing Log Cabin" as the Disappearing 9-patch was how I thought of the approach. (Want to see it? Too bad... I can't post any pictures until it has been gifted.)

The other time this happened was when working on a baby quilt (pics below). First I picked out all my fabrics (the part I hate most):

Then I tackled a Crazy Nine Patch Tutorial by Elizabeth from Oh Fransson!. If you aren't familiar with Elizabeth's blog, her talent is only matched by her generosity, so many wonderful tutorials! She also has quilt and craft patterns available on her etsy site.

Elisabeth warned that the seams will not line up, but once I have finished a few blocks I just couldn't handle it! Don't get me wrong, it's pretty common for me to have seams that don't match due to my complete lack of perfectionism... whether it was the fabric selection or the seams, I just wasn't feeling it. So I decided to use a narrow sashing to separate the "patches" and call attention away from the uneven seams. I used 3/4" strips of inexpensive black fabric so with 1/4" seam allowances, it left 1/4" of sashing:

Here are the before and after of the blocks:

When looking at the finished quilt, I had my moment... "Wow, this looks like stained glass! This style should be called 'Stained Glass quilting'!!"... so I googled it...

And it is called stained glass. There are even published books for this technique.

Like I said, I'm not here to be the first ever quilter to try something, but darn this quilt looks good! I can't ask for more.