I have received blocks and a cute little knitted hat for my baby boy from Jude. Thank you so much.The blocks look beautiful. I can’t wait for it to get colder down here in south Georgia to be able to use the little hat. I’m also looking forward to the rest of the blocks to get here so I can start laying out a baby quilt. I’m very excited to see the colors I get.

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...

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...

Here are my 2 for June!   Great block, now I want to make a whole quilt using this block with these wonderful bright colors!! Sophie, add these to the donation list :). Good luck...

  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...

Thank you, Julie P, Cathy and Charlene, for helping me make those make-up Star Chain blocks.   (The background of the large block really is lime green and not nearly as yellow as it looks on my screen and probably yours.) While I was working on them today, I couldn’t resist making a few little star-chain blocks.  The little blocks on the right are 5 1/4 inches (finished size).  The center star is made from 3/4-inch units … I...

It has been six months since I joined Block Lotto and I am having a great time! I like the way my scrappy mod mod sampler is coming along.  Since I wanted to work with the fabric I have and not buy,  some of the colors or piecing changed a little. I was pleased to when I saw the June block had curved piecing. Learning to sew curved seams is on my to do list. Although it has been challenging,  it wasn’t as difficult as I thought.  I have a...

The size of the arc which is part of this month’s Sunrise block was determined by the size of a sheet of US letter-sized paper to make it easy to print the foundation pattern. I intended to put together a tutorial this month, describing how to draw your own pattern, so that you could make a sun, half-sun or quarter sun (AKA New York Beauty block) in any size you needed for other projects.  And then, while I was looking for an old photo in...

What a perfect block for the month which has long sunny days! I’m posting a BlockSwapper quilt I made 3 years ago with the sunrise block as a setting block.  It’s one of the few blocks that I use folded paper piecing.  I hate pulling paper off blocks so I fold the paper back and stitch along the...

As a woman of a certain age, I can remember when handmade items were not generally valued and the term home made mostly had a bad connotation.  A couple decades ago, I remember a (dress) designer friend telling me how she avoided anything that suggested, “loving hands at home.” Times have changed and along with a renewed interest in knitting, quilting and sewing by a younger generation, handmade items have become valued in our...

These are the first two sunrise blocks that I made.  I thought they would be a good place to start sharing suggestions for techniques and tips for making the blocks.  I am starting the conversation with my experience, but I hope that, if you decide to make the block, you’ll also share yours.  I’ll use this post to gather our collective experiences as encouragement and help for those that may be feeling a little intimidated. For the...

I cannot believe we’re almost half-way done … except for the putting it all together, deciding on a quilting design and quilting it, of course 😉 I learned from my mistake last month and pulled out everything I’ve done so far before choosing fabrics this month.  This time, I am second-guessing a choice I made in an earlier month and may still end up re-making blocks–I am reserving judgement for a couple more months to see what...