My Liberated Garden

These are photos of the completed quilt that I made with last january's liberated stacks (or a portion of them). Because of their bright colors and some floral elements, they struck me as being a garden path, so I used some Kaffe Fassett and other large florals to make snowballs, and then surrounded the whole thing with some Michael Miller fern fabric. The very nice quilting was done by Maria Davis. Thank you fellow Block Lotto participants for the beautiful blocks. The backing is K Fassett Millefiori, which means thousand flowers (the Venetian glass technique). I love this fabric. Our local guild show this year has a them of "quilts in bloom" so I am taking the liberty of entering the quilt in the group category; I don't expect any ribbons, but our show chair encouraged the entry of some easier quilts and I think it's good to show off some liberated quilting too.

I'm keeping this one!

poll re border for coin stack / snowball quilt

I was the lucky winner of some of the January coin stack blocks and have putting the quilt top together this weekend. Here are photo, in reverse order of posting, of the progress to date.

The bottom-most photo is the progress to date. I think I probably need to add white sashing on the two outside edges and at the top and bottom, just to even everything out, but then I need a border, I think. (maybe not, please advise).

I have auditioned 3 or 4 fabrics as borders (but haven't cut anything yet).

The next-to-bottom photo is a Michael Miller green fern fabric.

The next 3 are various Kaffee Fassett fabrics I've collected (with the last one only a fat quarter so I'd have to find more and buy more). Please comment and vote your preferences or send me off in a new direction! Thanks again for all the great blocks.

My garden path

This looks more like my vision if the photo is rotated 90 degrees. This is a very tentative and incomplete first try at a layout of a portion of the stack blocks that I was lucky to win in January. Many of the stacks had floral motifs and/or little critters (dragonflies, etc), so it got me to thinking of a garden path, and I have a little collection of Kaffe Fassett prints, so I made snowball blocks of the big florals, with three paths surrounding the two "beds" of flowers. (please disregard the bare toes on the stool). I'll add a strip of white sashing at the bottom & top of each flower row, and maybe do a green leafy border around the whole thing (I have some Michael Miller green fern fabricd that might work. I welcome comments and thank all your contributions. I also have a few corners to add to the flowers.

Photos - Coin Stack

 A rather jumbled array of photo's - I'll get the hang of this one day!!

I've nearly finished it! Just a bit more hand quilting to go, I'm doing wavey, meandering lines through-out in white - and really enjoying the journey through the blocks of stars, monkeys, giant crayons, daisies and candy stripes to name but a few. I used a very thick wadding so it's a lovely chunky quilt and I added a scappy border and on the reverse, my gingham check backing fabric wasn't quite wide enough so I added a stripy pach to widen, even using my one block that I had to keep behind as it didn't make the grade size-wise!! This was my first ever entry into the Block Lotto and I won - so this quilt is staying put - I love it and I thank each and every one of you for your beautiful blocks - this is a very special quilt.

stacks received

More stacks ;-)

thanks to Coralie

It's a lot like Christmas ;-)

My letterbox was overflowing this morning ;-)

Receiving these gorgeous blocks is better than Christmas ;-)

Here are blocks from Andrew, MaryJane and Kelly (thank you for the extras Kelly)

Here is the design wall so far - doesn't it look great!!!

3 last minute stacks

Hi everyone,

Finally I managed to save my pictures on my computer and should now be able to post them on the blog now. As Sophie said earlier, my husband is travelling in the US for business and took the camera with him because he was visiting New York yesterday. So I took some pictures of my blocks with my Blackberry this morning but I couldn't seem to be able to transfer them anywhere... Anyway all done now so here are the pictures of my 3 blocks. The colour aren't really nice on the pictures (darker than in reality)

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks Sophie for the welcome back!
Celine

Welcome Kathy B - Welcome BACK Kelly

Kathy B. and Kelly emailed me last night with photos of their blocks and a desire to join or re-join the Block Lotto.  They've both been added as authors, but, given the deadline at noon (Eastern Time),  I thought I'd go ahead and post their photos for them this month.

They are both Texans:  Kelly is in Houston and Kathy B. is in Lubbock.

Kathy made 10 blocks.

Kelly made 3 blocks

 

 

Together they bring our total--with a little over 4 hours to go until the deadline--to 373 blocks.  

I've also received email from Celine who will also be returning ... and is currently working to get her photo off her phone (her DH is travelling with the camera!) .  I think we've all been there--technology is great except for when you can't seem to make it work no matter what you do.  

Welcome to the Block Lotto Kathy B.  Welcome back, Kelly and Celine.

3 more

3 more, which should bring my total to 7. Somewhere in my messy sewing room, I have ten more strips cut out, but they have gone walkabout.

4 more stacks

Here are 4 more stacks from me, for a total of 7. They're fun and use up a lot of scraps!

My stacks

Hello everyone, I am a newbie here and to quilting. Thanks for letting me join in on the fun. I'm sure I will learn a lot of new patterns.

Two more stacks to add

Here are two more stacks to add to my 7. These were thrown in the scrap bin for being a smidge small, but then I read where Sophie said 10 1/4" meet the guidelines....so from the scrap bin to the ever growing pot!

four more stacks

I've managed to make 4 more of these stacks bringing my total to 8. I can't believe how many blocks everyone has made this month, it's amazing! Sorry about the fuzzy picture - it's the best I can manage with my phone in low light. -Laurina

Benta's stacks

Three blocks for the January Lotto (donated please Sophie) and I seem to have a full house (or a full forest LOL) for the liberated trees, thank you all very much!

As part of the learning curve of making blocks with other people ... I'd like to ask whether most of you do wash your fabrics before making blocks for your own quilts.  I don't, so I am having to create a stash of Block lotto fabrics separate to my own stash, and I wondered if anyone had any suggestions on how to manage this.

Benta

Two More Stacks for Me

Thanks for an easy, fun block to start 2011, Sophie! So many chances for winners this month too! Fingers crossed inside my mittens:) Sarah V. in Northern Ontario, Canada

My Stacks...

Wow look at everyone's stacks.  So many "new" people too!  How cool.

Here are mine...

Karie

Love These Stacks!

Hi, I'm glad to join in. I'm Pokey, and when I saw Sophie's easy strip project, I said, "This one's for me!" I teach second grade, but I'm also always on the lookout for simple to accomplish squares for quilting. I tell everyone that they can make a quilt, and this is a great example.

I'm joining in for the first time here, thank you Sophie for your patience! Poor, girl, this elementary school teacher needs the grade 2 directions, she had to help me through 6 emails!

So, here are 4 blocks, and hopefully I'll get a few more done before the end.

Thank you for letting me share in the fun with you.
Oh, and come visit me at Pokeydot Quilting!

My first two blocks

Newbie first timer here. I just joined up on Friday, thank you Sophie, and hopefully will have some more completed before the end of the month.
My name is Blondie and I love to create all sorts of things. My motto has always been when the fun stops, I stop.
I have been drooling over all the past blocks y'all have been sewing. Looking forward to sharing more blocks in the future. You can always visit me at my blog Vintage Primitives

Once again, thank you for having me.
Blondie

All done

Here are all nine of mine for January. This picture includes the two I already posted.

total stacks....8

Here are the last three stacks from me for January blocks. These go into the donate pile too. I worked on my wonky tree quilt a little too. Will post that later! Julie P aka joe tulips.