Lotto blocks from Sherry

Here are Sherry's blocks--the last for November and for this round of the block lotto.



Today I crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and made the leap to beta blogger. It was quick and painless. The only change you can see so far is the addition of tags to each blog post. Tags are a way of categorizing messages and will make it a lot easier to find old messages than scrolling through the monthly archives.

Year-end House Cleaning

As I mentioned on the Quilting Forum, as part of wrapping up this round of the Block Lotto, I'm moving most of the block photos from my webspace on Comcast to Flickr. It was because I was running out of webspace last Spring, that I made the switch with the Grandmother's Choice blocks in May.

For my personal wrapping up, I've picked up my sampler quilt project and made some progress. You can see photos of my plan for alternative blocks and the 2-steps-forward-1-step-back kind of progress I've been making on the blocks as I create, reject, rework them to visit my vision for an old-fashioned quilt on my sophie junction blog.

One more task planned for this month is looming large ... I'll be moving this blog to the Beta Blogger format. I have been stuck in a blogger catch-22 until today. I was a member of a team blog (for a knitting project I was working on a year ago). You can't yet move team blogs to Beta Blogger, so if you're in one, you don't see the option. The team blog has been dead since March. Until today, I wasn't getting any response from the email requests from the team blog owner owner--the only person who could remove me. Now, all I have to do is leap and trust that the net will appear (and nothing bad will happen to all these blog posts and photos ... ) Cross your fingers for me.

Brainstorming the 2007 Lotto

I started a discussion on Quilting and asked everyone to brainstorm colors and themes to use for the block lotto next year. Here's the list so far:

• I-Spy-style novelty fabrics
  
• Bright stripes and polka dots
• Blue & White
• Colors to coordinate with a specified focus fabric (an example could be the 2007 Hoffman Challenge fabric)
  
• Purple & Yellow
• Country colors on muslin background
• 30's repros (repeat)
  
• Christmas/holiday
• Seasonal groups (for example, oranges, rusts, golds, browns for Fall)
• Completely scrappy (repeat)
• Brights (repeat)
• Orange or Pink (with extra pink blocks for a Quilt Pink charity quilt for Breast Cancer research)
  
• Asian (oriental)

Come join the discussion--there's a link in the sidebar to take you there.

Congratulations, Anne!

Anne C. from Indiana is the lucky winner of the November Home & Hearth lotto blocks made by Amy (2), Ann (1), Bonnie (1), Julie (4), Laura (3), Lee Ann (2), Mary (2), Sue (1), Vanessa (2) and me (3).

There are a couple of blocks in the mail from Sherry and someone else may be adding one to sweeten the pot and make a nice round set of 24. Enjoy, Anne.

Lotto blocks from Bonnie, Laura and Mary

These blocks all arrived last week, in time for their makers to be included in the drawing.

From Bonnie and Mary



and from Laura

Lotto blocks from Ann and Julie

Yesterday, i picked up 5 lotto blocks.

From Ann ...



... and Julie




Total blocks this month so far: 15.

Gaggle of Geese

Here are some of the geese I made this weekend for Micki's Flying Geese swap on the Scrappy Quilts Forum. More like these will be going to the 11 women in the swap--these are the left-overs for me, me, me.

I couldn't help but think of the real geese which disappeared with the first snow in October. Rumor has it that they didn't go far ... just down the road to another complex. I think the cats miss them, even if they were a little frightened when they came this close.

Lotto blocks from Sue and Me

Sue's block arrived last week.



And today, I made these three.

Hearth & Home in November

The lotto block for November is Hearth & Home. Amy, Lee Ann and Vanessa made these.




For a controlled scrappy look, block makers are asked to pick 2 from this list for 4 possible fabric choices:

• Red tone-on-tone (TOT)
  
• White on white (WOW)
• Back & White
  
• Gray TOT (includes fabric known as BOB or black on black)

There are 12 possible combinations. Everyone is encourage to make one comfortable choice and one that's maybe a little out of their comfort zone.

Finishing Up October

Here are the last of the October blocks ... from Ann (3), Barb (5), Colene (5), Laura (5), Laurie (5), Terri (4) and Theresa (5)













... and congratulations, again, to the three winners for October: Laura, Ann and Julie.