Quilting: The Most Patriotic Quilt Pattern Ever

At some point in the last few months, I decided that I wanted to make a quilt. I don't remember exactly why, but I know this Martha Stewart quilting project was my inspiration:

The only problem was how much I disliked the birds. I stewed for months over a theme, and eventually decided on snowflakes. And then cityscapes. With the idea of cityscapes firmly in mind, I plotted a quilt. I designed it to include not-so-much piecework, but with a little more finesse than 12 massive 18-inch blocks: 

Six 18" squares, and then 24 9" squares. Maybe 'finesse' is a word I should reserve for my second quilt. 

I've bought the two blue fabrics, but am holding out on the brown until I've made serious headway. I don't want to spend a fortune on supplies and then drop this hobby like a few others I can think of... 

Today, I made pattern pieces to cut out the squares for the quilt. I'm not a detail-oriented person (whatever my resume in highschool said), so this process included a few victories: (1) I remembered to include a seam allowance, (2) I actually made a pattern instead of just cutting into my fabric, and (3) My square pattern pieces are square.

Scissors and tape are included for scale. Not because I was too lazy to clean up before grabbing the camera.

I assembled the squares from legal-size file folders, and the ends were a bit wobbly (being made up of a few pieces of card). I made the decision to reinforce the sides with packing tape, but my packing tape (from Canada Post) is graphically and in-your-face Canadian. I kind of like it.