the Show and tell qults

We had the show and tell for last years blocks, and although not that many people brought their quilts to Show, they were beautiful!

Cheryl had a finished quilt!  Hooray!  We all love getting a big quilt like this completed and ready to use

The arrangement of blocks was really nice, and I liked the outer borders she chose, 

Karen's quilt was gorgeous too.  I love the borders she made for the medallion area.

It sort of looked like stained glass with the sun from the windows shining through the fabric.

Linda ( I hope I have your name right) had done a variety of projects with the blocks from the Sticks and Stones blocks from the previous year.

First, a lovely single bed quilt.  The light colored zig-zag setting really created a quilt that will be lovely to use, and the straight line quilting she did was so effective!

 

A few more blocks became a dresser runner, again with some lovely quilting,  --- look at that border pattern!

and there were still enough blocks for some throw pillows for on the bed or in a sidechair,

Betty's sample with the Jo morton fabrics was also a finished quilt.  She emphasized the golds and greens,

and she also brought her sampler using moda fabrics, mostly from the Little Black Dress groupings,

absolutely stunning,  and ready to use too.
It was so nice to see the quilts.  And incidentally, there were lots of us in the audience to appreciate them.   
I look forward to seeing what else people do with their blocks, even if it's not a "finished" project.  A sampler quilt is a big undertaking, and I know that we all work at different rates,    I have a few samplers from the past few years that I have yet to sew the borders on, and yes, I still have a couple of stacks of blocks waiting to decide what to become...

(a rare selfie, Michelle)

Enjoy your day, and happy stitching!

Block 12, Housetops

Block 12 is an old favorite of mine, Housetops:

this is the block, but not in the kit colors......

these are the colors in the Jo Morton kit, -- I only had enough of these colors at home to sew half of a block

and these are the colors in the Cotton and steel colorway,

this shows the block before it is cut into four smaller blocks.   I am keeping my options open for this one.  I might keep adding rounds to it and use it in the center of my quilt... who knows,   

Sticks and Stones Show and Tell

On Saturday it was exciting to see all the sampler projects that people brought to show each other.  Last year's Sampler blocks used a colorway that included grays, taupes, browns and charcoal, as well as light colored neutrals.

 Karen used a lovely feather design fabric for the sashing, and sewed stars for between the blocks, and smaller blocks to use around the edge in the setting triangles for a beautiful allover look.

 I loved the cobblestone like borders and setting triangles on this one.

 It will be interesting to see what gets quilted in those alternate squares..

 This sampler from the batiks colorway from a couple of years ago had a stained glass look to it.

 Verna also brought her 30 block king size top using the topsy turvy setting,

 I was sorry to see it get folded up,

 This was the first totally finished project that we saw.  Dianne used a light colored border, and it was all-0ver quilted with Baptist fans,

 Another finished one!  Very impressive!

 Beautiful quilting, and done on a home sewing machine!

 This was the third totally finished quilt, and again, quilted on a home sewing machine,

 You need to see some closeups of the beautiful motifs in the setting triangles and outer borders,

 Sheila made her quilt pretty zingy with her fabric choice for the sashing and inner border-- that diagonal stripe is great,

 what a difference you can make just by the addition of a narrow little strip of fabric:

 Another gorgeous quilt that uses a light colored border.  (I might have to re-think my plan for using a dark border....)

 I love what she did with the arrangement of the sub-unit s in that square on the lower right...

 It was refreshing to see this black white and lime green quilt!  Love everything about it!

 She also had her sticks and stones quilt, using a two-sided sashing

 I like the way the blocks seem to float on the light background:

Thank you again to all of you who brought your projects.  I was inspired.

Blocks....and Samplers

Hello, Happy Sunday.   I am happy today because I am not as sick as I was for the past three days.  Now it has just turned into a regular cold. 
Being sick really slows a person down.
Right now we have a big rainstorm going on, so I'm also glad that I am safe and cozy inside.

It occurred to me that yesterday was Block 20 of the Saturday Surprise Sampler!  Time to think about settings! 

Okay, I realize that many of you think of this much earlier in the game, but I don't.  I like to get all my blocks made first, then think of all sorts of possibilites of what to do with them.  I also have my black and white blocks from last year!!  that's okay, I'll just need to think of more possibilities.

In preparation for all this thinking, I spent lots of time on Pinterest while I was sick (until it made my eyes hurt)
I made a special board where I pinned a bunch of images of quilts put together with sampler blocks,
click here to go to this bulliten board.  If you click on the image in the right way, it will take you to where it was originally posted so you can get more info on a quilt that you especially like. 

Also, don't forget that along the top edge of this blog, I have a couple of pages where there are lots of photos of what people have done in previous years with their sampler blocks:

click either on the page tabs, or you can click here, or here,

Many of these were based on the 21 patterns that we have available at the shop --- Setting Solutions,
I noticed when I was pinning the other images on Pinterest that there were some quilts I liked that featured an extra large block in the center, and the sampler blocks around it,
such as this one from Stichin Heaven,

found here

or this one,

found here

There are all sorts of ways you can vary a sashing strip between blocks,
 such as this storm at sea type sashing,

found here

or this one using scrappy triangles,

found here

and there are all sorts of good alternate blocks that you could use,
Well, you get the idea, - the possibilities are endless.  Part of the fun is the dreaming,

Block 17, Box and O's

This is a nice block.  I think it would make a pretty all-over quilt design,

what about using Jo Morton Fabrics, those 1800's reproductions,
or how about with the light citrussy colors of Fig Tree ....

block 16 Four Winds

This block came out last Saturday.  I really like the way that the square seems super imposed over the darker brown cross, 

Saturday's Block, Many Roads, #15, plus #12

Saturday was the pick up day for Block # 15 of our Saturday surprise Sampler Program, It is called Many Roads:

I did in fact sew it, but I forgot to take a photo of it before I took it to the store.  
Speaking of forgetting,
I also forgot to post this on Feb 15th, it was block 12 for the Sticks and Stones Sampler Blocks:

Saturday surprise sampler, block 14, Mosaic

I forgot to post this last week!

It is called Mosaic diamond.

Much like that previous block it is composed entirely of Haskwar trial units that finish at 3 inches square.  So much you can do with just one simple shape, especially when you start playing with value, shades of light and dark and medium.

Block 11, Star in the Window

Today's block!