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’ve been focusing on finishing my “row along” quilt to enter in the Dallas Quilt show, so haven’t let myself play with the tall red star blocks that I won in the fall, but this weekend I’m going to a quilt retreat so may have time to play with them.  So I got them out tonight and laid them out in columns on some dark green fabric I have in mind for vertical sashing.  The light doesn’t do them justice, but my...

Sophie asked for color combination suggestions. I really liked the palette suggested by the “To Boston With Love” project. Although it’s not in the screenshot, white was also used in people’s combinations. I guess this is a modern...

While the December winners are waiting for our stripes blocks to arrive, here’s a minimalist setting idea. This quilt is from the Infinite Variety exhibit of red and quilts in New York a few years ago. The photo is a screen shot from the Infinite Variety iPad app....

There are many many others, but here are some chevron or zig-zag quilts I’ve seen lately.  A few, like the first two here, are older than you might guess.   This one is called simply Zig Zag Pattern has been dated as 1901-1929. It was made  by Viola Haeline Dollar Lake in Lumber City, Georgia. I found it on the Quilt Index site.   I also found this even older two color example, dated as 1850-1875, with vertical zig zags,...

Last summer, I was trying to make sail boats using the stack and whack method. At the same time we were making the tall stars here at lotto. I adored them and when I put them with the sail boats, I thought….cool. So I made 9 more this quilt....

I have been thinking about making a small quilt using this month’s basket block, but filling and/or adding to the baskets … and that’s how this little idea began. If you’ve been around long enough, you might remember this little pillow project, using our liberated basket block.  I quilted in some leafy vines coming out of the baskets and added lots and lots of yo yos.  At the time, one of my goals was to use up pink...

  Well, I missed the deadline for making leaf blocks in October, but I did want to give them a go, so I made a few from some batik scraps I had, and used some other batik prints to knock up this small top.  As usual, the block lotto has provided me with inspiration and help to clear my scraps and...

I promise.  This will be the last one … unless I come across something else that I find interesting enough that I can’t resist sharing 🙂 This Baby Sailboat quilt came from a Leisure Arts Publication, Quick Method – Classic Blue Quilts.  It’s quite old, but I found some copies online on eBay … and I wouldn’t be surprised to still see it on shelves at Jo-Ann. I think there’s a couple of interesting design...

I was flipping through a book looking for something else, when I saw this quilt … and had to share. These blocks are wider  than ours, but similar enough that I think you can easily see how effective this quilt design is … with plain sashing and borders.  If you had a set of our lotto blocks, you could choose whether to go white or blue for that sashing and borders. I think the reverse blocks (whichever way) would give this classic...

Just wanted to show a picture i found on my pc, but don’t know where i found it. Somewhere in the internet … It’s just another...

I sent my bird blocks to Gail and Kate on Monday … hope they arrive at their new homes soon! Looking forward to seeing what the winners create.   I needed a couple of extra blocks to go with some orphan heart blocks and bird blocks were perfect. This comfort quilt will be going to kids at camp this...