As the end of the year approaches, time seems to move more quickly … I can’t believe that November is almost gone. The deadline for posting in time to receive the sneak peek email with information about the December block is noon (on the US east coast) tomorrow. The deadline for posting in time to be included in the drawing for these incredible blocks everyone has made is 7 days later, on November...

This morning, Christa emailed me with a photo of her calendar. The quilt in the photo is Road Trip by Pat Wys (from her book Knockout Neutrals). If you like on-point settings, this will give you an idea of how our blocks might look, on-point, with narrow (1 1/2-inch) sashing and cornerstones. In these blocks, both the X and the Plus are scrappy, with a consistent dark square used for the center of the plus. The calendar was created by That...

Uh oh … I am already falling behind with my row per week goal. I’d like to blame it on the “a word” (appliqué) … but it’s probably more a reflection of the stress in my life right now. I cannot show you a row yet, but here’s my plan. I decided to work on the flower appliqué row next.  Because I know the blocks will be side-by-side, I thought it would be fun to add a vine and a few leaves to connect the...

The older I get, the harder it is for me to adapt to the time changes for daylight savings time … especially when I haven’t been sleeping that well anyway.  In most of the US, in theory, we had an extra hour of sleep last night as the clocks rolled back an hour. But I was awake around 3 AM–which would have been 4 AM the day before, but was still way too early, though the cats were very excited about it.  Even though I stayed in bed...

  I always feel a little silly posting my blocks, when most everyone has already seen them in the block pattern. But I know from experiences that if for some reason the numbers look wrong (comparing the list on the At-a-Glance page with the spreadsheet I maintain) that if I haven’t posted my blocks in an individual blog post, it makes it harder to figure things out. That’s also why I ask the sneak seekers who have shared block...

This is one of those blocks that have been floating around the blogiverse for a while. To create a 9-inch version, I redrew it with proportions to make it easy to measure and cut. Laurina made this one. The fabric guidelines and my directions for making this block can be found here: X and Plus Block Pattern The block directions give you options for how you cut and construct the Plus and the X. One of the options for the X-units is to use...

In October, 33 quilters made 136 monochromatic 9-inch star blocks,  with a black background, called Twinkle. The blocks were won by Laura, Nann and Christa. Complete guidelines and a links to the block pattern, optional template and paper piecing foundation pattern are in this post: Twinkle, Twinkle, Monochromatic Stars in October   The tag for ALL blog posts about this block: twinkle   Here is the list of the blocks and who made...

Here are the numbers generated by random.org …  and here’s what they mean. Congratulations to our October Winners: Laura R (48 blocks) Nann (48 blocks) Christa (35 blocks) I will be sending the winners email later today to confirm their mailing addresses and ask how many of their own blocks they want to keep. As soon as I have heard from all three winners, I will put together the mailing info for everyone who made blocks this month....

While the workmen were here today installing the new floor in my dining area, I updated the the underlying web template on this site.  You likely won’t see any differences, it’s mostly a matter of working well and maintaining compatibility with the new version of WordPress.  If you notice anything that looks odd or doesn’t perform as expected, please let me know. While I was there, I also tried three different social media...

Here is my sampler row quilt so far – 4 rows completed

Look in the center of the blocks in this quilt, by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts, and you’ll see small half-square triangles.

If you have made and posted blocks this month, you should have received sneak peek email from me this morning.