My favorite two block combo is Jack in the Pulpit and snoball. This make a really good looking grid pattern. The jack in the pulpit pattern is a very old pattern.

Sounds like a really fun challenge rootyr. Quilt block combos with secondary surprises are my favorite - especially when they use two blocks. I can't wait to look up all the suggestions you've gotten here.

I hope when you all present your challenge quilts that you can share some of your favorite results on the QB with all of us!

It just so happens that a couple of weeks back I ran across one combo while fooling around with EQ7 and my hubby asked me to make it into a lap quilt for him.
It combines Goose in the Pond with Fifty four-forty or Fight. You get a really nice secondary circle formed. Here's a mock up so you can see what I mean:

Jan you have so many great insights on how it works here! You always do!

Judi - I started fooling around with the two blocks you suggested - Snowball and Jack in the Pulpit.
First I substituted Jack in the Pulpit for Goose in the Pond in my pattern shown in above post. You get a similar secondary circle effect with a lot less piecing. :thumbup: Loved the results!
Then I tried it with the Snowball block in two different versions. I hope I chose the right type of snowball block. It too came out really neat. (Please pardon the hasty color and border choices)
Rootyr, I thought you might like to see them too:

I think I'm visually impaired - meaning I don't see secondary designs until I look really hard. I didn't see the circles until I stared at one block in the middle and then the circles magically appeared. Which is why I have to have a pattern or get my daughter to help me. She sees the blocks very well.

Misseva,
Perhaps you are too close to the design, I mean in proximity. Turn your back to the design and look at it through a mirror (like you would if you were checking the back of your hairdo). Or use the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

Distancing yourself from the design is a quick way of finding problems, too, such as if a block is set/turned wrong.

Jan in VA

When I look at blocks like Jacob's ladder, it seems to me the diagonal corner is a 4-patch that looks like the other 3 corners. Can you explain to me what you mean by "unmatching diagonal corners" ? Sorry to be so dense. You always have such good explanations and I appreciate the time to spend trying to make quilting clearer.

Thanks Jan, I'll try that. My daughter can look at a quilt & actually "see" the block as in there's a triangle, square, & here is the whole block. Guess I'm just dense. But I do have one of those little devices to look thru for your quilts and I will try that next time.

Misseva I couldn't see it either and finally snuck up on it and there it was. To my eye, those patterns are too complex. I can't find a resting spot for my eye.

Sure makes the world interesting in how we see and respond to things.

Have you ever gone to this website and played at the quilt block playground? http://www.freequiltpatterns.info I think it is amazing! It will help you see your blocks before you put them together. A million blocks! That's enough for me.:)

I fretted over that after I posted it. I sort of meant the block needs one 'different' corner, can't remember exactly how MEH stated it to us originally. But using the mirror trick, in a later response, is a much better way to find that kind of block and is now what I use most.

Jan in VA