Status Updates

I've heard from three of our four winners.  SHELLEY, be sure to check for email from me and reply ASAP and confirm your mailing address and let me know how many of your own blocks you'd like to keep.

We will be moving to the new website and blog TOMORROW.  The February block will be posted on the new blog.  I also have a job interview tomorrow morning, so I may not be readily available to answer questions and resolve problems until the afternoon. Here are the three posts to help you get started:

Accounts and Author Privileges - If you didn't make blocks in January, you will need to request an account

First Things First - Setting a new password and updating your profile after your account is created

How to Post - A walk through the process of uploading photos and creating a blog post.

January 2012 Winners

And the winners of the January Block Lotto are.....

#1:  Linda N.
#2:  Kathy S.
#3:  Laura R.
#4:  Shelley

Congratulations ladies!  I can't wait to see how you put the blocks together!

Get Ready

I've sent the list of names for the drawing to Ellie.  We made a total of 178 blocks this month, so we'll have 4 winners: two will receive 45 blocks and the other two will receive 44 blocks.  Good luck to everyone in the drawing.

If you made blocks this month, you should receive email today from WordPress with the username and (computer generated) password for your new author account.  The first thing you'll want to do is set up your profile and change your password.  I've tried to walk you through the process here:

First Things First - Setting up Your Account

2 Hour Warning

The deadline for the drawing is in two hours, which will be Noon in NYC, 9 AM in Los Angeles, 3 PM in Portugal, 2 AM (Tomorrow) in Sydney, Australia,

6 for Deana

The internet has been down so I had to run somewhere else this morn.  I love these blocks!

2 eclipse entries

The purple is a little brighter than the picture shows, so I hope this is okay. The curved technique came in handy on another project where there are dresden plate 1/4s being set in corner blocks, and the pattern didn't narrow them down enough at the corner so they need a little quarter circle. A bit tighter to sew in close quarters but it worked.
I'm blessed with a Pfaff quilt expressions 4.0, so the needle down option really helps to feed the fabric around the curves. I think it would have been more of a struggle on my old Kenmore.

Two Eclipse for Kristin

Made time today to sew up the second eclipse I've had cut out all month.  Adding that to the first one, and I've got a whopping two for the month.

Please donate my chances this month!

I've decided to make myself a Lotto Sampler using a layer cake I've been hoarding.  Should be fun!

My January blocks...

Laura Randolph
ljrandolph

eclipse

Here are 3 more blocks for January.
Gwen

eclipse

Copied and made my templates as soon as Sophie posted the information and then did nothing else until yesterday. With previous New York Beauty quilting experience, I was able to put together 12 blocks last evening. 9 for the lotto and 3 for my lotto scrap quilt , thanks again to Sophie and her great idea to keep all blocks the same size this year.
Really enjoyed making these and here they are.The other 3 are similar to the 2 greens and another mottled red.
Gwen

Eclipses for January

I only made two this time. I am one of the few who doesn't cheer for this block.

eclipse

Hello,

These are my nine blocks for the eclipse swap.  Since I won the last swap I would like to donate the nine for this month. 

Happy Sewing, Debra

Last year's string hearts

While I did not win last year, I did at least have my 2 bonus hearts... they sat and sat, until this year, when I decided to make two more string hearts and their bonus hearts. Then, I laid them out, played with scrap pieces of black, and came up with this!
Which then sat on my ironing board for another 2 weeks until I finally quilted it last night- nothing fancy, just in the ditch around the hearts (well, mostly- I had taken my contacts out!). It now hangs in our kitchen. I have small wallhangings for almost the whole year now!

Transition Update and a Photo Challenge

Unfortunately, during the last week or so, while I wasn't on top of the Block Lotto Blog, I ALSO wasn't working on our new site ...

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I'm still fighting with the template and the Home page format.  I'm currently impatiently waiting for "support."   I'd like to pull it together in the next few days, but I don't think it's going to happen.  There has been a lot of "one step forward, two steps back;" I'm sure there will be more of the same; and, at the moment, I'm stuck ;-)

One of the view things that is sort-of working is a photo-slider feature on the home page, in which I'd like to feature photos of the quilts and other projects made from lotto blocks OR inspired by lotto blocks.  At the moment it's having problems auto-magically resizing the images on posts imported from here.  So, I was thinking that some of you might be interested in creating "beauty shots" of your beautiful quilts in the preferred dimensions:

960 pixels wide x 368 pixels tall

I know that a lot of our quilts have been gifted or donated.  If that's the case, another option could be to crop one of your existing photos (or create a collage of photos) which is approximately 2 1/2 times as wide as it is tall.  Otherwise, after I manually tweak your posts with photos so that they WILL be cropped/ re-sized automatically, we'll have no artistic input into HOW they will be changed to fit.

If you have the time and inclination to re-photograph a quilt or crop/collage exisitng photos to create something with the ideal proportions for the "slider," you can email them to me and I'll glue it all together ;-)

UPDATE

I cropped a couple photos to see if that slider would work as expected. (Andrew, I hope it's OK with you that I took some liberties with yours).

They are both close to the 1: 2.5 ratio.  They look the same size here. but the detail photo of Andrew's quilt is actually much smaller than the ideal size of 960 pixels wide x 368 pixels tall. The other photo is slightly larger.   If you click over to our future home page, and wait for them to "slide" by, you can see what happens.  I also created a "beauty crop" of a detail of Julie's wonderful quilt made from the combination of string hearts and violet blocks and a couple of other recent "show and tell" posts.

IF you follow the home page link and go check out the current sad state of the construction project going on in our new home, PLEASE DO NOT attempt to post or add comments . .   YET. 

What are we talking about?

I couldn't resist creating our own word cloud, after seeing this on a couple of YOUR blogs ;-)

Interesting, huh?  You can play with your own words, shapes, fonts and other options at Taxedo.

My second eclipse

I saw this fabric and decided that I had to make another block this month. The bright purple was just too pretty. My sewing machine broke (why do I have such bad luck) so this is it until it gets repaired. Hoping I can participate in February!

Helen W

Nashville, TN

 

 

One for January!

I made two but one is wonky so I'm submitting just this one.  I liked the Blue paisley and had to use it.  I'm so glad to be back sewing it has been a long Month.  For those who don't read my BLOG regularly-- I had my Tonsil's out in December. As an "older" person it was the worst pain I've ever had to go through.  Not the surgery, but the recovery. It's been a very 5 weeks.  Nothing tasted good and I was soooo Hungry, but couldn't swallow.  Here's to a much better year!

Catching Up ... and the February Sneak Peek email

If you have made and posted Eclipse blocks, you should have a (late) sneak peek email message from me about February's block.  Your name and blocks should also appear in one of the lists in the left side bar, either blocks entered for the drawing or blocks "donated" to the pot.

I'm sorry for being an absent blog mom for the past week or so.  I would appreciate if everyone who has made blocks would check to see that their name is on the appropriate list with the right number of blocks.

I'm so proud of everyone who faced their fear of curved seams and/or working with templates and tried the January block. Even if you have decided you still don't like curves, the next time WILL be easier.

For those that haven't (YET?) made the January block, but are curious about what might be in store next month, you could look through your stash for fabrics in these colors:

Pink
Orange
Gray
Cream

The inspiration for the colorway next month comes from Winter sunsets.

One Eclipse Block Done!

Susan at desertsky.livejournal.com - my one block turned out easier to piece than I thought it would be!  I'm donating the chance, please.

Eclipse 2012 photos

Here are nine eclipse blocks for January. Good luck to everyone who has
made blocks this month.

Coralie in Canada

Five Eclipse Blocks from Kathy S. in Ohio

Here are five more eclipse blocks for the January Block Lotto from Kathy S. in Ohio:

Four Eclipse Blocks for Kathy S. in Ohio

Here are four eclipse blocks from Kathy S. in Ohio.  I love these blocks.  They are fun!

3-patch table topper

I finished assembling about half of the three-patches I won last summer into this table topper, with the addition of the wine-based fabrics in the center. The backing is 3 colors of grape bunches. My long-arm quilter did a nice job of quilting with vine and grape motifs in the blocks. This will go out to my friend who is a wine fancier, I hope this week; just need to add a label.

Here are 8 blocks from me for this month.  Sophie, I'd like to donate these blocks.  The hardest part for me was cutting out all the parts by hand since I don't have a small rotary cutter.

One eclipse for me

One eclipse from Kasey P.  It took forever for me to find fabric that I liked for this one, but digging through my stash is almost always half the fun!

Final scrappy trip blocks

Thanks Gwen, your blocks arrived today, so now I can get on with arranging them all.  Thank you everyone!

6 Total Eclipse Blocks for rho

I made 4 more tonight + the 2 posted yesterday = 6 total blocks for January............................. so far...

sharing a deal...

I picked up an omnigrid 9.5" square ruler today originally priced $13.99. It was on sale so I only paid $8.49. Not sure how long the sale lasts, but I thought I'd share my deal incase anyone was thinking about getting one to make this years blocks a little easier.

 

Laura E.

January 2012 blocks - Eclipse

OMGoodness!  another circular block Arrrghh! 

But ............... In Sophie We Trust ;-)  so I gave it a go.

I had some 'issues' LOL with this block - if you are interested, see my post on my blog for full details.

I think I have produced two acceptable blocks - even these I am not completely confident about  ;-(

Sophie, these blocks will be donated - if you deem them acceptable ;-)

Michelle 5 eclipse blocks...

...for now.  I still hope to get more done, but things are interesting around here so they may not happen.  I wanted to be sure to be in time for the sneak peek.

Debbie's 3 Eclipses

Debbie M

rho's Eclipses for Jan '12

These were fun to make. It's a busy month for me, so this may be all that I'll have a chance to make this month. (rho)

Eclipse - Donate

Sophie - I made one block for the month, posted last week, but forgot to tell you that I would like to donate it.  Terri

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!

6 more...

This will put my total at 7. I actually made 8, but trimmed one too small.

The lights look white, but they really do have color.

While sewing these up, I had an idea.

What if I take the scraps and use them??

This is what I came up with. I was going to have a circle in the middle and at the last minute changed it so they were all half circles. It is raw edge applique and I really should have spent more time sewing the arcs down. They are a little hairy on the edges. tsk tsk

Inspired Eclipse

I played with this month's block and pieced the arc.

  I made a doll blanket for my niece.

 

You can read more at my blog - here.

 - Kristin

partial eclipse

I've only made two blocks so far -- fun & easy!

Julie Wa.

9 Eclipse Blocks

 

Here are my final nine eclipse blocks. I have taken one of my original blocks out as I didn't think it was bright enough. I will keep it to go towards the sampler quilt. I hope these blocks are Ok.

Jan Eclipse blocks

Here are my 8 blocks for the month of Jan.  Quite easy to do.  Maybe that apple core quilt won't be too far in my future :)

Thanks Sophie for all you do.

 

Shelley

Eclipse

Terry in California, I have 5 for this months Lotto.  They are much more vibrant than this pix.

 

 

 

These turned out better!

I tried again, starting with a larger square and trimming the outer edge square  These turned out nicely and it's getting easier to stitch that curve with practice.  Awaiting judgement on the fabric of one of these...not sure if those leaves read one color well enough.  The red paisley is the fabric I used to sash one of my Scrappy Trips quilts.

eclipse block #1?

 

Yesterday I finally made my templates (Thanks Sophie!).  Today I started looking for fabrics and I have cut and sewn my first Eclipse block...maybe.  It came out a bit skewed as you can see in the picture with the ruler on top of the block.  I'm open for input into as  to what may have caused this and how to get better results.  Would it work to start with a 10" square of bright fabric and trim the outer edge only as that is where the problem seems to be to  a nice square 9.5" after sewing? the seams for the arc seem to be place the same distance from the corner on both edges. If this block is too far off in size, I certainly do not want to enter it into the count.

Eclipse from El Paso, Texas

Here are 4 Eclipse blocks for me this month (fingers crossed that my colors are acceptable).

Eclipse Block from Christa in VA

Finally I have one block made. The cutting and sewing was a lot of fun and much easier then I thought. I am so happy I was "forced" to try this. Without Block Lotto I would have never attempted it. Thanks!
Deciding on the fabric was the difficult part but I think I managed to get it right. The colors in the photo are not quite true. The blue is vivid with a turquoise tint. I love it. I made a second exactly like it to save for my sampler.

6 Eclipse from Pat K

The picture is a little off as the colors are more bright than the photo
shows. I hope the blue ring is ok....PK

Eight eclipses from Laurina

Here are my 8 blocks for January. I agree with one of the other posts - making the templates was the hardest part. My own problems were caused by an overly-helpful printer who thought it best to resize the images to fit onto my A4 paper (international sizing - similar, but not the same as US letter paper). I'm sure I told it not to, twice. But, I admit that the end result was worth the trouble.

9 from Kate

Here are nine from me for January. These were fun, though I did have trouble trying to find "light" fabric in my stash.  Who'd have suspected I had a light fabric shortage??

Eclipse Photo

Here is my one block for the month.  Although curves are not my favorite thing to do, this block went together very easily!

 

Terri Coty

IMPORTANT Reminders

I've got three  quick (but IMPORTANT) notes.

1. I still don't know WHO made and posted (via email) these blocks. Even though you are donating them and won't be in the drawing, I HAVE to know who you are so that you can receive the sneak peek email (with February block info) AND the mailing information so you'll know where to send them.  Remember, when you post via email, you MUST include some indication of who you are IN THE MESSAGE.
2. When you PRINT the templates (originals or the already enlarged ones) be SURE that you have NOT selected the option to "FIT TO PAGE" ... or your blocks will have TOO SMALL arches in the wrong place and won't work well in a quilt with the rest.
3. The FABRIC GUIDELINES say that the large square of fabric must be BRIGHT/BOLD.  It doesn't say dark.  I know that photos sometimes don't convey true colors, so I must rely on your HONESTY about making blocks that follow the color guidelines.  After reading Béa's blog (in French) where she used the French word vif, I thought of another good word to describe what we want:  VIVID.
   
   If your large square of fabric isn't really BRIGHT, BOLD, VIVID, then we should take it OFF THE LIST. Let me know if I need to adjust your number of blocks on the list.  Whether your blocks are in the drawing or "donated" to the pot of extras, They MUST follow the guidelines.

I really don't want to be the Quilt Policeman.  It's really not in my nature and the time it would take would push me past the limit of time I am willing to spend.  PLEASE DON'T MAKE IT NECESSARY FOR ME TO DO SO.  I want the winners to receive a set of blocks that will play together nicely.  And if you win the blocks (this month or any month), I'll bet you'd like that, too.

PLEASE FOLLOW THE RULES. Please do not put me in the position of having to ask you to leave the group because you can't follow the rules.  I've never done that and I do NOT want to start now.