June winners

The winners of our June Basket Blocks are:

Kelly (mingtoy52)

Sharon (lea2oh)

Annette (annettejeavons)

Congratulations, ladies!!

The Rest of the Basket Blocks

LIFE has been in the way . . . and I'm playing catch up . . .

Here are Laurie's (nlaurie) 8 baskets.



And six from Michelle (momof11)



THen she found some more black and white fabric and made two more.



And one basket from the self-proclaimed slacker, Sandy (centergranny).



Four from Ellen.



Rho (rhonda11) made eight blocks.



Karen (bittieshop) made a DOZEN blocks.



and Annette (annettejeavons) made these blocks.

Basket Blocks from Maz

Maz struggled and made a cocktail and struggled some more and made these beautiful 8 blocks.



Our new total so far this month is 94 blocks.

Let's Sew a Basket Block

After some forum discussion of hair pulling and suggestions of the need for cocktails, I thought I'd take a step back and approach making this month's block a little more slowly.

The concern seems to start here, with step one, where we sew the small triangle basket bases to the side rectangles.



The rectangles are 2 inches wide; the triangles are cut from 2-3/8 inch squares cut diagonally. Can that be right? How can they match? Yes. The quilt match that you need to remember is that while you add 1/2 inch to the finished size of a square or rectangle for seam allowances, you add 7/8 inch to a half-square triangle or 3/8 inch MORE.

So, you put these pieces together like this before you sew.



As you are sewing along, you'll notice that your seam begins or ends at the point where the diagonal of the triangle crosses the end of the rectangle.



(Sorry for the less than stellar focus on this one, but hopefully you can see what I mean here).

Press the seams toward the rectangles.



The strips fit on each side of the large basket triangles.



The pieces align, in a similar way, offset slightly, so that when you sew them, your 1/4 inch seams start and end at the intersections. It sounds a little tricky, but it's actually quite elegant.



Sew one side, press toward the large basket triangle, then repeat on the other side.





When both sides are attached, you should have a nice straight line across the bottom.



The bottom triangle will overhang slightly on each side, intersecting at the point where you sew the 1/4 inch seam. See? I'm telling you. It all fits. It's very elegant.



This next picture is a BAD example. You DON'T want this result. You SHOULD end up with 1/4 background extending PAST the basket base triangles--so the points won't be cut off when you sew the block into a quilt. I fixed the block afterward, but thought a bad example was worth sharing. Remember THIS is what YOU DON'T WANT.



Unless you are choosing the hand embroidery option for the handle, you must add the handle to the background triangle before you add it to the bottom of the basket.

Please use the template provided in Janet's pattern--it will help make all of our basket blocks play nicely together in the winners' quilts. (If you are one of the winners, you'll really want this ;-) I used a ruler to help me make sure I was centering the template, then traced the circle onto my background fabric.



Then I used a glue stick to stick my baby rickrack in place before stitching it down. I thought it was a lot easier than pinning.



Then, after it was sewn, I trimmed the excess rickrack even with the bottom edge of the triangle.



After the handle is attached, you can complete your block.




Note, on my second block I made (with a blue basket with blue rickrack handle), I didn't have any matching thread handy, so I used mono-filament and a zig-zag stitch.



Please, don't be afraid of this block. Cut your fabrics carefully and try a pair of blocks. They are so charming and you'll feel so accomplished when you've made your blocks.

Basket Blocks from Judee & Cindee

I've fallen (behind) and I'm trying to catch-up this afternoon. Here are eight blocks from Judee (3199).



And six from Cindee (zoopme).



And two more from me.



Our new total so far this month is 86.

More Lotto Quilts in Progress

Maybe Mercury in retrograde really is good for working on old projects. Look at these two finished tops from past lotto block winners, Desi and Little Deb.

I think the sashing and cornerstones Desi used for her I-spy snowball blocks are simply perfect.



Deb's addition of alternate blocks and a piano key border (with some skinny black borders to make it all pop) and a few more floral shoo fly blocks turned her lotto blocks into a top large enough for her queen size bed. Yay! She added the names and locations of the people who made the lotto blocks she won.

Colene's Basket Blocks

Colene made these two blocks. Everyone is coming up with such great fabrics. I loved these.



Welcome back to the block lotto, Colene.

Our new total so far this month is 70 basket blocks.

Amy's Basket Blocks

Where did Amy find LIME rickrack? Here are her two basket blocks.



Our new total for the month so far is 68.

Deb's Basket Blocks

Check out the basket blocks that Deb (littledeb) made.



I especially like the yellow fabric with the lady bugs. Our new total so far this month is 66.

Wilma's Basket Blocks

Here are 8 basket blocks from Wilma (WilmaNC1)



That makes 58 blocks so far in June.

Sylvia's Basket Blocks

Here are eight baskets from Sylvia (imjin53)



We now have 50 blocks so far for June.

Laura Has Been Busy

Laura (ljrandolph) recently posted photos of two tops completed from lotto blocks won in the past. I think Pat and her Lotto Block Challenge really got some of us going. Thank you, Pat.

Here are blocks made from Marcia's Hohn's block, That Thirtie's Thang (which we made in not-so-30's fabrics).



And last summer's Asian Attic Windows.



Brava, Laura.

Remember, you get bonus chances to use in the lotto whenever you want when you finish a top and three chances when you finish a quilt.

Debbie's Baskets

Debbie (dzrunner1) said she wasn't a big basket fan, but look at the cool basket blocks she made.



Her eight baskets bring our total so far this month to 42.

Basket Blocks from Kate & Mary Jane

Here are Eight Blocks each from a couple sneek-peekers, Kate (katelnorth) on top and Mary Jane (mjontebeau), below. Thanks, ladies, for leading the way ;-)

Sophie's Basket Blocks

I wanted to try a few different methods for the handles so you could see how they looked. I used different thread, different machine stitches, etc. I took individual photos so you could get a closer look.

Click for larger images; the descriptions on Flickr also include the thread and stitch used for each handle.










(I also wanted to sweeten the pot a little this month, so I made some extras to get us off to a nice start).