Deadline today At noon (on the US East Coast), I will be asking Mr. Random.org to choose our 6 winners of Big-O blocks.  If you have made blocks, but not yet posted them … you have about 3 hours to do so. Virtual blocks for the January Quilt For any of the sneak seekers who have made January blocks … it’s not too late to send me a photo to use for the virtual quilt.  I’ll be putting it together tonight. Thinking about...

When I added Kate’s blocks to my lotto block-tracking spread sheet, I noticed that we’ve made a total of 2222 blocks in 2014.   I am easily impressed, but that number blew me away and made me smile. And all of you helped 🙂

Christa is having problems signing into the Block Lotto, so I’m posting these four Big O quarters for...

If you have made and posted Big-O blocks, you should have received an email from me with the advance information, guidelines and block pattern for the January 2015 block. It is a black and white block that can be made in one of two combinations: Option 1 Light fabric is white solid or white-on-white (WOW) print Dark fabric is a black & white print that is more than 50% black Option 2 Light fabric is a black & white print that is more...

After I probably spent too much time last night cutting up Helen’s photo into virtual blocks, I couldn’t resist creating examples of two approaches to designing a sampler quilt. I promise that I’ll stop now … and get busy working on the sneak peek for tomorrow (yikes!) In both quilts, I assumed there will be 4 Mug blocks (I used each of Helen’s blocks twice). The first example is a Medallion-style, very symmetrical...

She made it look like too much fun … and so here’s my first idea for Helen’s blocks (a sampler style setting with each group of 4 blocks sewn into a 4-patch with a neutral colored fabric used for sashing and...

I faced my fears about being run down in the streets (again) and walked to the Post Office and mailed blocks to Jen and Julie.

 This morning, I picked apart the Big-O block that I had originally put together (before re-thinking the idea of counting quarters and mailing smaller blocks for the Block Lotto). As these 6 quarter-O blocks have sat on my design wall, I keep thinking about the idea of an alternative, serpentine-like layout, so … once I picked out the seams, I put them back on the wall in this arrangements. If you like this idea, you would need to add 7...

Remember the great color palette, suggested by Debbie, that we used for our Bead-on-a-String blocks in February and just how hard it was to find fabrics in that brownish-red color? (If you weren’t around then, you can see photos of the blocks made by sneak seekers in my Flickr album: Bead-on-a-String Virtual Blocks I think it’s going to become easier to find those earthy reds soon … I just saw Pantone’s Color of the Year...

I have spent the afternoon sitting in one end of my COLD studio, huddled next to the electric heater, while plumbers work at replacing the heating system in the other end of the space (with the garage door at that end of the studio space OPEN!) While I waited, I spent part of the day working on the virtual quilt. I’ve updated the December 1 post with the block photos from the sneak peekers and some of the blocks posted in the last couple...

Mailing Info If you made and posted blocks in November, you should have just received email from me with the mailing info for your blocks. As always, I ask everyone to take a quick look–to make sure I haven’t made a mistake with your information–and to mail your blocks in the next two weeks. If you find a mistake or if you didn’t receive the update, please let me know ASAP.  I am heading back to the hotel soon, but should be able to...

I have STARTED a lot of sampler quilts made from lotto blocks … but most are still unfinished and only one was finished in the same year as we made the blocks.     The lighting is less than optimal–I slid the stand under one of the skylights in the studio … just as I was losing the light. This is the Full/Queen-size with 7-inch plain borders for a finished size of 96-inches square. Here’s a close up of the...