The last block of the year

I brought in the new year by sewing another radiant block. This will be my last block of the year. This one was originally from the first Block of the Month program Carol Doak offered for free on her Yahoo Quilting Group. Of course I had to re-size and add setting triangles to make it work for the king-size quilt I have planned, but I think it looks pretty good. Eight done so far, only 41 to go. Life is good!

Another Radiant Block

This time I used the block Carol Doak designed in 2006 to celebrate reaching 1,000 members on her Yahoo Quilting Group. I didn't like this one quite as much, but I think it goes well with the rest of them. On to another one. This is fun!!!

A modified radiant block

To make a king-size quilt, I had to add 13 "radiant" blocks to Carol Doak's Simply Radiant Blocks of the Month (12) and then I'll need to make 24 connector blocks. I found 13 other free blocks Carol designed that I thought would work, but they were all 12" blocks, so I shrunk them down to 8.25, figured out the new cutting directions, will add setting triangles to each so they are 12" blocks again. The first one I made is my favorite free block designed by Carol Doak. It was to commemorate her Yahoo group reaching 700 members. Now we have close to 7,000 members. Seems fitting to re-use this block in a different setting. I think it'll fit right in with the others.

December BOM

I skipped over this block because I didn't like it as much as the others. I have a hard time with those spikey kind of points. The skinnier they are, the harder they are to match up, and these ones were skinny. But got it done anyway. It came out pretty good -- was harder that I would have liked -- but no harder than expected.

September BOM

Got another block done. This one took less than an hour and it's my favorite so far. Very neat design. And for once I think I put the colors in the right place. Loving it. Hopefully tomorrow I can get another done. The way I'm going I'll be caught up with the monthly blocks by the weekend and can start working on the extra blocks I'll need to make this a king-size quilt. In the end I'll need 49 blocks. Of those, 24 will be connector blocks or setting blocks - all the same. But I need to come up with 25 more stars to make this fit the bed the way I'd like.

October BOM

I finished the October BOM. This was really a cool design. If I would have paid better attention and been better at envisioning the finished product, I would have put some colors in different locations. But it still came out okay. Still plenty of blocks to make before I am caught up.

November BOM

Well I finished my second block of the month towards my king size bed quilt. This one was from November. I had a hard time with it. Lots of match points and I wasn't careful enough on my sewing, but it still came out pretty good. I'm going to try to keep the white centers and black backgrounds in these blocks, as well as the standard black scroll print on the setting triangles. I think it'll look great when finished.

Starting a new project

I haven't been in the sewing "mood" in a while, but a commitment that came due forced me back in the sewing room. Once I got started I remembered how much I loved it. I'm sure my blood pressure has gone down now. I've started a new project. This is the block of the month that started last June. I'm a little bit behind in some ways but ahead of the game in others: I got January's block done. Now I just have to do June - December to catch up. I've decided to use my hubby's favorite colors -- yellow, black and white. The first one came out pretty good. Hopefully I can get caught up quickly. If I make a block a night, it'll only take me a week. I'm on my way. Stay tuned for more blocks / posts.