Neither silk purse nor sow's ear

My friend Rosie, who never fails to remind me that many years ago when she went to take a quilting class that I said I wasn't interested...and that I'd not likely ever get into quilting, gave me the bear paw blocks to do something with.  She had meticulously hand stitched them many moons ago.  They were of varying sizes and were already sewn together into two strips.  I decided to separate the strips so that the varying sizes wouldn't be obvious, and I think this has turned out nice.  

Part of the reason I wasn't interested in learning quilting was that the class she took was all done by hand.  I didn't hand sew then and don't do much more than affix labels or embellish a little with hand stitching now.