This month’s block can be made from 2 or 3 fabrics … but NOT 4 fabrics. The center (or pie shape that will become the center when four blocks are sewn together to form a bullseye) and the second arc around the center must be the same fabric. Graphically, these drawings represent your two options for fabric placement:     You can certainly start with a stack of MORE than three fabrics which is what I did when I made the four blocks...

If you made lotto blocks in May, you should have email from me with the information you need to mail them to one or more of the winners. I’ll be standing in a line like this one later today … The numbers and directions are a little different for this one because you need to send mirror-image pairs of the leaf blocks–I think of them as “lefts” and “rights,” but you might identify them in some other way. Other...

If you are making blocks for Old MacDonald’s Mystery Sampler (#OMMS), you probably noticed I neglected to mention yesterday how many blocks you’ll need this month … and a few of you were quick to ask me about it–which is a good thing, I think,  because it means you’re invested in playing along 😉 I have updated the June 1 post with that information and also updated the 2016 QAL page. I confess that I am playing catch-up a...

While I am working on how to make all the block photos play nicely in the virtual quilt–this time some of the photos were too small (that never happens!)–here are the 5 blocks I made for the lotto. This arrangement (and this month’s color way) suggest water to...

In June, we are making Improve Bullseye blocks in quarters.  Each quarter is a 6-inch (finished size) block These are the four blocks, sewn to form a bullseye that I made for my scrappy graduated sampler. 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.     Block Pattern   You can find the block pattern here: Improv Bullseye –...

In May, 27 quilters made 160 scrappy Green Leaf blocks (as 80 pairs), which were won by Karen N in South Africa, Wendy in Connecticut, USA and Barbara S., on the other side of the US in Oregon. These are the 4 pairs of blocks that I made. Complete guidelines and links to the block pattern are in this post: Green Leaves of May   The tag for ALL blog posts about this block is leaf.   This post will serve as the archive of blocks made,...

I have sent the numbered list of names and instructions for generating random numbers to Nann … who will be our Winner Picker this month. If you are in the drawing, it’s time to cross your fingers for luck. We ended with a total of 80 pairs of leaves (or 160 blocks), which means three winners, two of which will receive sets of 56 blocks, the third will receive...

If you are one of the 25 quilters who has made and posted Green Leaf Pairs this month, you should have email from me with a sneak peek at the guidelines and block directions for the June block. I just updated the list on the at-a-glance page and with 136 blocks (68 block pairs), we will have at least three winners. Speaking of the list, please DO take a moment to click over and make sure the number of block pairs I have for you is correct and...

Every month or so, I scan through all the new accounts that have been created and remove those that don’t look like real people. This morning, I deleted close to 900 accounts. One of the site plug-ins used to do a good job of auto-magically putting the spammer/hacker accounts into a special bucket … but apparently spam-bots and hackers are getting smarter, so now I have to scan through the list and manually delete anything that...

My computer continues to “eat my photos.” I think the problem is with the Apple Photos application, but whatever/wherever it is, it’s darn frustrating.  However I DID manage to finally put together the official version of the block pattern this month … then noticed that some of the photos I had uploaded to Flickr to resize and use in the pattern are now no longer on my computer … grumble grumble grumble. You can...

I’m sorry for the delay–it’s been a busy time for me (for no apparent reason, really). If you made Butterfly blocks for the Block Lotto last month, you should have email from me with information about which winner(s) to mail them.    

While I wait (and hope) for the sun to come out and dry things up so I can take my blocks outside for their cover-girl moment, I realized that I can, at least, share them here. You might notice that the pair at the top are made from the minimum number of fabrics required–2 lights and 2 greens, the next pair are slightly more scrappy and the 4 blocks at the bottom (which I shared during the sneak peek) are very scrappy and contain a wider range...