I mailed my blocks to Julie, Laurie and Laurina today. If you haven’t yet mailed your June blocks, please try to do so in the next few days.   It’s so much more fun for the winners when they don’t have to wait for the stragglers. Thanks.

Today I made my block for the Star Challenge. I remembered that my original idea was to make a block from the sketch that would become last month’s Sunrise block and now that I had a pattern, it was pretty easy to do. For my block, I printed the foundations at 80% and created a sun with a diameter of 8 inches. I also reduced the amount of background around the block for my 9 inch block. Here are a full-sized block and my resized block for...

If you made and posted lotto blocks in June, you should have received email from me with the mailing info. Be sure to read it carefully … it contains a surprise for one of you 🙂 If you should have received the email but didn’t or if you find errors in the mailing info, please let me know ASAP.

Here are the first three spokes blocks I made, alongside the same photo, converted to black and white. If you are in doubt about whether you have enough value contrast between your monochromatic fabric choices, converting them to black and white is the easiest way to know for sure. Most cameras, photo editing programs and photo apps have filters to convert your photos.     And here’s the photo of the back of the blue block,...

Linda suggested this idea and I liked it … probably because I’ve been planning to make a star block for this project for almost a year and have never gotten around to it. Maybe you’ve already made a block for Astronaut Karen Nyberg’s Star Block Challenge … or, like me, you meant to, but never got around to it?  The deadline is August 1, which makes it a great challenge for July.     You can download the...

I called this block Spokes because, although there are 8 spokes in our blocks this month, you can use the same technique to make a block with any even number of spokes.  Calling it an asterisk (6 spokes), snowflake (6 points) or fireworks (many spokes) seemed too specific to me. I made this one. The directions for making the 7 inch (finished size) block are here: SpokesQuiltBlockPattern   Tags   Add the tag spokes to all your blog...

In June, 26 quilters made 59 Sunrise blocks. The guidelines for the block are here: Summer Sunrise (Block) in June Tips for Making the block are in this post: Making the Sunrise Block The tag for ALL blog posts about the June block is sunrise The topic for the Block Lotto Linky Party is here: What Does Handmade Mean To You Here is the list of blocks made (and who made them).   Total Blocks :  59 Blocks entered into Drawing: Andrew – 1...

There always seems to be some uncertainty about when the deadline for posting/entering blocks for the drawing. The deadline is always at NOON (US eastern time) on the last day of the month … or a little more than an hour from now. Today, Debbie will be picking the winners (using the random.org random integer generator) and posting the...

I’ve had a couple of email messages from people about printing and sizes and measurements today … and I thought others might also have questions. This is what the print options look like when I print (from an iMac).  You may have to change the orientation from portrait to landscape so that it fits on the page in a way that it nearly FILLS the page.  In the bottom half of the screen, you can see that I have the Auto Rotate option...

If you are one of the dozen quilters who have made sunrise blocks and posted them, you should have received email from me with the July 2014 Block pattern and guidelines.  If you should have received the email, but didn’t, please let me know ASAP. If you haven’t yet made the block, you have one week to find the time or face your fears before the deadline. This morning, I was thinking about how, even in quilting, we sometimes need to...

  The alignment isn’t good, but all the blocks for the first six months of my Full/Queen-sized sampler are there, close to where they will be in the finished...

Remember those small 5 1/4 inch Star Chain blocks I posted last week? Here’s what became of them. I’ve always thought that mini-lotto blocks would make cute pincushions, though I was thinking of something flatter, with just a matching back sewn onto a block.  But I’ve always loved these chicken pincushions whenever they’ve crossed my path and I saw a bunch for sale in a booth at a local sewing/quilting/crafting show a...