When I saw this illustration on Design Sponge, my first thought was that it would make an interesting quilt block … then I noticed that the colors are the same as those we are using for our Bead-on-a-String Blocks this month (minus the black and white).   (The yellow-orange-maroon combination works pretty well with cream/tan, too, doesn’t...

Here is a quilt top that I finally got around to making with the heart blocks I won years ago!  I can’t wait to get it on the long arm and do some free motion quilting! I have a few hearts left over and I am not sure if they will go on the back or into a baby quilt.  At least one of them will serve as my label, I think.  If you recognize your block, I would love to hear from you.  I wish I had thought to have you all sign them before you...

Have you noticed all the great tips everyone has shared in their process of making the Bead-on-a-String block?  I thought I’d pull them together in this post for anyone who is looking for more information (and visual aids) for making this block. Andrew shared a link to a very detailed YouTube video which walks through the appliqué method that I call faced appliqué, How to Do Almost Invisible Appliqué by Machine. You might want to make...

I made 6 more Feb. blocks but my camera isn’t talking to the computer this evening.  Worked fine this afternoon.  I’ll post pictures when I get it figured out.

In the way that one thing can lead to another, Kristin was inspired by the giveaway of Elizabeth’s hand dyed fabrics to offer up something for another giveaway on the Block Lotto. In January 2010 we made 280 Tic-Tac-Toe Blocks. Kristin won 40 blocks and is offering them for the giveaway.   Here’s how you can earn chances to win. Earn ONE chance by leaving a comment telling us what you would do with these blocks if you won.  Kristin...

Julie Post of Titonka, IA  had a quilt, Captain A-Moo-rica, in the AQS Phoenix show as part of a cow quilt exhibit.  Jean-Sophie & I saw this quilt at the IQA Houston show and it’s grand & funny & moo-velous!  You can see see it on page 18 of American Quilter magazine from the American Quilters Society.  It’s the March 2014 issue and just arrived today.   Moo-ray for Julie!

  The Dallas quilt guild will be having its annual Quilt Show in early March, and we have a mini quilt auction to benefit a charity.  This year it is the Children’s Craniofacial Foundation, which provides medical care and support for children and their families who were born with facial and head abnormalities. I had some extra hearts left over from my “row” quilt, and everyone liked the tall birds, so I thought this would be a...

Just wanted to let you all know that I have all the maroon fabric! I don’t know why. I don’t really remember using it but I seem to have many pieces. Never ask me for gold or anything like gold as I really don’t like it at all. Not for quilting or anything else.

It always happens.  I think I’ve created some new block … and then I see it in a quilt on someone’s blog.   And that happened recently with the Bead on the String … though I did’t save it and am having problems finding it again … I’ll keep looking. The good news is those are happy coincidences because they usual lead to some new idea about how to use the blocks in a quilt design. Our block is...

Delighted to see my name among the winners – I do still have a set of lotto blocks (the birds) which are waiting to be made into a quilt, but they are a bit harder to decide how to set (do I add branches? a wire? Do I use them straight? Still making up my mind on those) – otherwise, I (for once) don’t have a backlog of blocks waiting to be converted to quilts.   These chevrons will be fun to work with, and fairly easy to set...

I didn’t win the Duds and Orphans drawing (sniff), but I thought of the orphans last night when I saw this pattern/book, Gypsy Wife, by Jen Kingwell, at the quilt store.  It seems like this could be a interesting setting for an assortment of random blocks if you could pick up colors from the orphans for the striped part. I have some BLotto related orphans that might work with this. I had not seen her work before, but her patterns are...

  I noticed this quilt on the blog, Fist Full of Fabric, and thought the combination of greens, pinks and purples was interesting.  Look closely and you’ll see a range of light to medium greens, medium and dark pinks and dark purples.   I think it has potential for a future lotto block … what do you think? When we talk about color palettes, sometimes a photo really is worth more than a simple text description. Last month, as...