When I sat down to start on this triangle block, I saw I had written down a note for this block that said simply “interlocking circles fabric from Becca?”.

I had no idea what the interlocking circles fabric from Becca was, when I might have received it, or where it might be now.

But a little bit of deductive reasoning led me to a bag of fabric scraps from last year’s retreat that had not been sorted into my fabric bins yet. And in that bag was a fabric that fit the colorway (red and cream/tan) and most definitely featured interlocking circles. This had to be the mystery fabric from my friend Becca.

All I had to do was pre-wash it so I could get rolling on the block. Since they were such small pieces and I didn’t want them to get totally raveled in the washer, I hand-washed them in an awesome little tub I have for just this purpose.

Then I started cutting out the pieces. That first square at the top was the perfect size for one interlocking circle. In the next row down, the square was more of a rectangle, but about the same width, so I just fussy cut one circle with a little bit of extra on the top and bottom.

In the third row, the rectangles were narrower, but I just centered the circle and didn’t worry that the edges of the circle were cut off.

It was after I completed the third row that I realized that there were two different motifs inside the interlocking circles: one with a dot in the middle and one without.

But I really didn’t want to tear out any bits (especially because I had limited fabric and I was trying to fussy cut, which always seems to use up a lot more fabric).

But I’d ended up with dots in the third row, and no dots in the first and second row. What kind of consistent pattern could I make? I, naturally, would hate it to be totally random (the chaos on my recent block notwithstanding).

I pondered spelling out something in morse code (dots and no dots, instead of dots and dashes), but that seemed unnecessarily complex, and again, I had limited fabric.

Ultimately, I decided the two rows without the dot had a patterned piece in the middle of the row, and the row with a solid red piece in the middle had a dot on the patterned piece.

It’s a weak pattern, I know, but I had to do something. I’d already met my quota of randomness for the quarter.

So, I paid more attention on the fourth, fifth, and sixth rows, making sure that I used the motif with no dot if the center piece of the row was patterned, and the motif with a dot if the center piece was solid red.

The bottom piece presented its own challenge, since it touched the patterned pieces of the row above. If I was cooler, I may have been able to match the pattern. But we all know I’m not that cool. The best I could do was to make sure a motif with no dot was lined up at the center.

I take solace in the fact that it took me so long to notice there were two motifs … odds are good that nobody else will look that closely. Especially if I don’t go around telling people that there’s a hidden Morse code message in the block.