New Year, New Block and Birds in the Air
Birds in the Air is one of those traditional blocks whose strong graphic design can make it seem quite contemporary.
We will be making a 6-inch (finished size) block. All the lotto blocks this year will be 6 inch squares (finished size).
You may make a maximum of 9 blocks for chances in the drawing at the end of the month. The target set size for the winners will be 48 blocks.
This year, I will be hosting the block patterns on Payhip, mostly as a way to track how many are being downloaded. They will continue to be free for the first 10 days of the month. You can download the pattern by clicking the image or this link and the coupon code DSS6FO4142 for your free pattern.
Birds in the Air Quilt Block Pattern
As you will notice, I’m using an old/new format. Do please let me know what you think.
Fabric Guidelines
This block is made from 2 fabrics–Sky and Bird.
Sky– can be solid white, a white-on-white (WOW) print or a print with a white background that is predominately white.
Bird – can be a solid, or tone-on-tone that is blue or purple.
If you make multiple blocks, you can use the same Sky fabric in multiple blocks, but each Bird fabric must be unique.
Tags and Categories
Add the tag in the air to all your blog posts about this block.
The category should be blocks when you are posting photos of your blocks to enter them in the drawing; use the category sent and received when you are posting about mailing or receiving blocks; and the category show and tell to share projects you make from this block (whether they are lotto blocks or blocks you make for yourself.)
The Rainbow Scraps Challenge Connection
As much as possible this year, I will coordinate Block Lotto fabric guidelines with the chosen colors of the month for the Rainbow Scraps Challenge. If you aren’t familiar with this activity, you may want to check it out … FYI, there’s a fabric giveaway on Angela’s blog for blue and purple hand-dyed fabrics.
Quilt Setting Ideas
This block has many possibilities when it comes to setting ideas. I hope you all make at least 4 blocks so you can see what happens when you rotate them, put them on point, etc. Try treating them like a half square triangle unit and creating a block from them. Here are two ideas to start. In the first, I played with rotating the blocks in an on-point setting. In the second, I created sawtooth-stars from the blocks, using them as HSTs.
sophie,
I like the new format.
I think I stopped doing it this way when my hard disk crashed and came back from being repaired without any of my apps installed and I panicked, thinking I’d never find my original disks. It’s more work for me, but I like it, too.
Pretty block, Sophie!
The block is beautiful…love those birds!
YEAH! The old/new format is back! Kudos to you for such a great idea. I wish you success in the new year with publishing and selling your patterns through Payhip!
Feed back: Maybe include the various quilt layouts or make a link to them on Block Lotto website for new viewers.
Pat, we must be sharing a brain lately. I initially thought to include some possible quilt layouts, but there are so many I couldn’t decide what to share/when to stop and decided a cutting chart with options for other sizes would probably have more value. This morning, I honestly though that I could share a new layout every day this month because this block has so many possibilities.
I like the new/old format. These print wonderfully for future use. Great block choice, too. I also like that it looks as though you have an opportunity to benefit by your work on your blocks. Brava!!!
I mostly just wanted a way to get some real feedback on how many people are downloading the patterns–it was an easy way to get some of that feedback I was whining about a couple months ago when I was wondering if the effort was worth it.
Sophie, I like the new(old) format. You’ve really got all the info well-presented, and the bonus info is a boon!
LOVE the fact that you are going to try to connect the monthly block to the monthly colors of the RSC16! Double the fun!
Beautiful block and the colors are so “wintery”.
Love this format, it’s new to me, and the ideas for the design of the full quilt really help me get ideas. Wonderful 1st block, will MAKE the time to do this year’s Block Lotto….
Hi,
I just tried to download this pattern, but got a pop-up from Adobe saying that the file was damaged/or the format was not supported…which I don’t know what that means…
Would you mind trying again (if you haven’t already). It seems to be working well … there have been 60 downloads in the last two days. Worst case scenario is that I can email you a copy, but I’d like to understand the problem, because even if I email you directly, it might not open for you. I’m thinking it might be a version thing. If it doesn’t work when you try again, could you check and tell me what version of the Adobe Reader you’ve got? Thanks.
Sophie, first of all Happy New Year and congratulations for all the hard work, I like the choice of block and palette for the new year. Very fresh. I downloaded the pattern and really love the old/new format. So clear and easy to follow. Thank you for all the hard work you put into the lotto
I love these patterns in this format. And coordinating with RSC is cool too! I almost forgot the 10th of the month deadline!