Jane Douglass emailed me with a photo of the quilt she made from my pattern, Violet Block in 6 Sizes. Isn’t it...

I mailed my bead blocks to the five winners today, too. I hope you like mine and all the blocks you receive. Marie’s package also includes her next installment for the Cotton Robin. (Julie, if you are reading this, don’t be mad at me for mailing the round robin early.  It made sense to send the cotton robin and lotto blocks together and seemed more reasonable to me to mail the round rib early than the lotto blocks...

If you follow my personal blog, Sophie Junction, then you know I’ve been making an Oak Leaf Block of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Here are my blocks for January through March, in scrappy blues, pinks and teals. My blocks are 10 x 15 inches–not one of the four sizes for which I had measurements for cutting. Mostly so that I don’t have to remember or think about it each month, I added that size to the chart at the end of...

I made myself a big salad for lunch and lunched at my desk while I figured out the distribution of those 224 Bead-on-a-String blocks. If you made Bead Blocks, you should have email from me with the mailing info. If not, let me know ASAP and I’ll resend it to you individually. Please take a quick look at the sheet to make sure the number of blocks I have attributed to you is correct.  Let me know ASAP if I made an error in your information...

Here are the Star Chain blocks I’ve made so far.  The first four are for this month’s lotto drawing (I’m donating my chances). And these six are for the two versions of the Mod-Mod quilt I’m making. The color for the rainbow scraps challenge this month is aqua/teal (or anything not exactly green and not exactly blue.)  I made two from those colors (for the throw-size) and coincidentally added some aqua to my larger...

As soon as I see March on the horizon, I start thinking about the arrival of Spring. And Spring makes me think about wildflowers blooming, fresh asparagus, packing away my wool sweaters and unpacking linen and silk clothing, gardening and new inspiration for quilts. I put together this mosaic of images from Flickr of some of the things I think of, when I think Spring. 1. Spring Fantasy, 2. Sure sign of Spring – Robin – Bird, 3....

In February,  we are making a big 14-inch square (finished size) Star Chain block using your choice of 2 or 3-color combinations including green. This is one of mine. The block pattern directions are here: Star Chain Block Directions Because these are big blocks, a couple things are a little different than usual this month: You can make a maximum of FOUR blocks for chances in the drawing at the end of the month.  As always, if you like, you can...

February 2014 – Bead on a String In February 36 quilters made 224 Bead on a Strip blocks, made from black, white and your choice of two: yellow, orange and maroon–a color-way suggested by Debbie. These blocks were won by Marie, Debbie, Ginny, Tracy and Debra. Here are the details for the month. Guidelines for February are here: Bead on a String is the February Block Tips for making this block are here: More Tips for Making the Bead on a String...

Random.org has chosen the winners of the Bead-on-a-String blocks in this order: Marie (48 blocks) Debbie (48 blocks) Ginny (48 blocks) Tracy  (48 blocks) Debra (32 blocks) Debbie and Tracy are both first time winners–Tracy made her first block last month and Debbie has been making blocks for years.  (Thank you random.org … this one was a long time in coming.) Marie is the lucky girl who has won 2 months in a row! Congrats to all of you....

There has been an update to this plug-in for the site (that was working so well until it stopped some of you from logging in) and so I’ve turned it back on to see if whatever was causing that specific problem for us has been resolved. I didn’t realize how many spam registrations it was stopping until I turned it off a few days ago … If anyone has problems logging into the site, please be sure to email me and let me know...

If you have made and posted Bead-on-String blocks this month, you should have received email from me with the March Sneak Peek look at next month’s block and related information for the Mod-Mod Quilt-Along.  If you should have received the Sneak Peek, but didn’t, let me know ASAP. This is also a good time for everyone who has made blocks, to click over to the At-a-Glance page to check that the information I have for you is correct....

It feels a little like a Bead (block) Factory in my sewing room lately. Here are my 27 Bead-on-a-String blocks for the Block Lotto and two Mod-Mod samplers.     Most were made using the 6-minute circle technique … though I can’t say I finished any of them in 6 minutes, it definitely got faster/easier as I made them. Most of the bead blocks will be adjacent to a double chevron block in the quilt.  Here’s how my...