As soon as I saw Uppercase, a fabric collection by Windham Fabrics, I knew I wanted to make a quilt using it. I didn't really want the Fat Quarter bundle of the entire Uppercase collection, so was thrilled when I found a 'short stack' of 18 FQs put together by the shop Modern Textiles in Fargo, North Dakota.*

Now the question was, what to make with this selection of tiny print fabrics?

Emma Jean Jansen's new 2016 book By the Bundle has been getting great reviews on social media so I decided to get a copy for myself. Lucky Spool LLC has published yet another winning quilt book! I really enjoyed reading the book and looking at Emma Jean's quilts. Her photos were taken outdoors and have amazing Australian landscapes as backgrounds.

There are several quilts I really like. "Star Burst", "Half Moons" and "Nellie Gray" are all quilts I would enjoy making myself. But it was "The Hi Quilt" which provided the inspiration a quilt using the Uppercase fabric.

Emma Jean says "The Hi Quilt" was designed as a simple geometric pattern. It was her daughter who saw the letters H and I in the design!

I thought about making "The Hi Quilt" pattern. It would look fabulous with the Uppercase fabrics. But then I decided it would be fun to design my own letters.

Using squares and half square triangles, I drew out blocks for the entire alphabet. That was a challenge! Most are of the letter blocks look great, but a few are a bit odd! I think I am going to pick my favorites and not use the entire alphabet. This will be a random letter sampler quilt. Each letter block is unique so this quilt isn't going to be done any time soon.

I can't wait to really get going on this project! Here is my first block. Letter R!

*Historical aside: I went to college in Fargo-Moorhead--that's where I learned to quilt! Too bad Modern Textiles wasn't there when I was in college! This store has a lovely assortment of fabrics and shopping in their on-line store made me feel like I'd gone back to the Upper Midwest for a visit! There was even a hand-written note in the box when it arrived! Really nice!