rho's Jeweled Geese for March~(3) blocks

rho's Jeweled Geese ~ These are my 3 blocks for March - Please count me in!

Sharon's Geese Blocks

Sharon from Ohio emailed me with this photo of her three geese.



I added her to the list (also Kathie, who I did accidentally not include) . . . our new total so far is 143 blocks. Wow! (my word for the day, apparently ;-)

Lotto Bowtie Quilt

I wanted to share what I did with my bowtie winnings. First I had all the blocks sewn together on point with a plain block in between and decided I didn't like the setting. Yesterday I ripped the whole quilt top apart, started over and got the borders on it this morning. I didn't notice until I was taking the picture that I forgot to add the navy blue inner border! After all the work I did and ripping I decided I wasn't going to rip the borders off just to add the inner border. I'm sure my nephew will never know the difference. Now to get it sandwiched and quilted.

Terri

Reminders and Administativia

132 blocks have been made so far this month, which means we'll have at least three winners. Yay!

Of course, there's still plenty of time to make blocks . . . or to make more blocks, if you haven't made the maximum of 9 or if you'd like to make more to sweeten the pot. I speak from personal experience when I say that I know that they can be a little bit addictive (and a great scrap buster.)

If you haven't yet made blocks, a couple of incentives may be:

• National Quilting Day is tomorrow–even if you can't devote the whole day to quilting, it doesn't take long to make a few lotto blocks.
• Making and entering your blocks by Tuesday, March 24, will entitle you to receive sneek peek email with advance information about the April block.
  

FYI, I have touched base with our February winners and it looks like they have received all their Heart in a Snowball blocks except those from Libby. I hope Libby is OK–I didn't get a response to my email to her–and that her blocks are just a little late making it into the mail or maybe taking the scenic route to their new homes.

More Blocks Received by LJRandolph

Hello ladies,

This week I've received blocks from Shelli and Michelle. Thanks so much!

Laura Randolph

Blocks for March - 4

Here are my 4 for March. Too many other projects to finish.

Here are my blocks...

Here are my nine blocks on my design board. They were so much fun to make! I was really surprised that they went together so quickly.

Sophie, I love this block and am looking forward to seeing the quilt the winner puts together!

Jennifer

P.S. I can't believe how much orange I have in my stash!

Another Flying Geese quilt

Quilt made with the bonus HST (2 of same colour), if you use the method 2 for your Flying Geese.

I sew always 3/8in away from the diagonal and I have a lot of half square triangles ready for a miniature quilt or a matched border, or a cushion, depending the size of the first quilt...

here are the houses

Here is the finished Amish Houses top, made from my winnings a few months ago. I added the trees and road to make a little village for my nephew. Thanks for all your blocks!

March 2009 Flying Geese from Kathie

I've done 8 blocks this month, and just love the combination of black and jewel tones. I used Eleanor Burns' method of making the geese, which I always find gives me the best result.

Kathie from Allentown

Hearts in a snowball wallhanging

Hi all,
Last month I put the corners on the white blocks before the hearts, so the blocks were too big for the lotto. The blocks were too pretty to just put away so I started a wall hanging with 4 of them. It's not quilted yet, but I think the wall hanging looks good for orphan blocks.
Being in the block lotto has inspired some creativity in me!
Gail

Finished blocks

Hello,
Here are 6 blocks. I'm not sure I'm going to make it to 9 this month, so here's the first 6. This was the first time I successfully paper pieced.

Sophie, this is a beautiful choice of fabrics, the black and the jewel colors! I'm crossing my fingers, hoping I win!

Gail

some advice for beginners (a plea!)

I was one of the winners of the Amish house blocks a few months ago, and I'm almost done putting them together for one of my nephews. I have definitely run into some frustration, though, so I wanted to mention a few paper-piecing tips for those who may not have done much of it before...

First, you really do need to make sure that there is something close to a 1/4" seam allowance! Look at the two pictures below -- the seam allowance starts out too small and tapers down to nothing... this means that the first time the quilt is washed it will come apart. There are no fairies who are going to magically fix this for you, so you really need to look at your blocks before you send them out or put them into your own quilts.When paper piecing it is necessary to use smaller stitches so that they don't pull as much when you tear the paper off. This will keep your stitching neater and help keep the block together at the edges.
Next, if you decided to do a row of stitching around the block when you're done, to stabilize it, please make sure that the stitching is inside the seam allowance. Otherwise, it will show and someone will have to go back and pull out your stitches later on.
When you are doing paper piecing, it is important to continue your stitching past the seam allowance (some people backstitch, and that's okay, too) but if you stop stitching right at the edge of the piece you're adding, a few stitches will come undone when you tear the paper off, and then you will end up with a very "delicate" piece of work. I had to re-sew the edges of a whole bunch of houses because the seams had "disappeared" for the last 1/2".
And a general bit of advice -- if you are sewing on black and other dark fabrics, please do not use white thread. It will show everywhere a seam is pressed. Please use gray or something darker.
Unfortunately I didn't notice that there were a few houses with no seam allowance before I sewed them all together -- so I need to un-sew a few and make new ones. I hope to have the finished top to show off by this evening!

Plaid Bow Ties Redux

Guess what/who I thought of when I saw this Plaid Bow Tie quilt at the Dallas Quilt show yesterday? This is called Rings Around the Rainbow Ties by Dana Braden of Richardson, Texas.



By this point in the show I had run of out battery for the camera and took this with my phone, so the quality of the image could be better, but isn't it great? The background fabrics in this quilt are also plaid. It's really plaid-happy. The bow-tie blocks aren't quite the same pattern as ours–they are the three-dimensional kind, but I thought the look was very much the same.

Flying geese for March 2009 from Ginny

Here are 9 flying geese from me. They look better in person than in the photo, so don't worry!