Blocks of the Month

It has been a rough couple of weeks. Not all of it, but enough to keep me from posting - or even sewing much. I've completed a needlepoint cosmetic bag and have another one about halfway done. But no Bead Journal Project and no work on quilts in progress. {sigh} There have been a couple of bright spots however. :- )

My local quilt guild does a block of the month lottery most of the year. I don't participate in the block of the month all the time but every once in a while there's a block that especially appeals to me. Such was the case in May. The block request was titled "Spring's Flower Garden." I know the block as Seesaw. This is one where the placement of values within the block makes a big difference in its appearance. I don't think I have a picture of the Seesaw version to share with you. Let me go look...

Nope. But here's the block I made for the drawing:

That was so much fun to make that I did another one for the chicken quilt I've been slowly building:

Imagine my delight when my friend C~ informed me my name had been drawn as the winner of all the blocks at the last guild meeting! :D There were 21 blocks in all:

One block is noticeably smaller than the others. There was a paper foundation piecing option for creating the blocks and I suspect the maker of that block did not make her foundations quite large enough. Another block has seams coming apart right at the edges so those will have to be reinforced. The big question is, what to do with the blocks? I could make something out of the existing blocks and give it away or I could make more blocks and have a happy new quilt for myself.

Just for fun I made a couple more blocks to add to the collection...

They are the bottom two in the lower left corner of the picture above.

These are such pleasing blocks to make that I will probably make enough to have 30 blocks total. I'm pretty sure now that this quilt will be for me, at least to begin with. Then this morning it occurred to me that I could call it Birthday Bouquet since June is my birth month! Now I have an excuse to keep working on this project instead of building up the chicken quilt further. ;- )

Oh, and the block of the month for June is to use any technique to make a block that will finish at 12" for the "Dog Days of Summer." Since I have several dog prints in my stash I felt compelled to participate again. I started out by making a couple of 6" Double Pinwheel blocks and then combined them with simple four patches that feature fussy cut dogs.

I wasn't happy with all the different colors. It wasn't cohesive enough. So I remade the double pinwheel blocks:

Much better!