Block Lotto 2013

Block Lotto 2013 is off to a great start–more than 100 January blocks have already been made an posted ... but I realized this afternoon I haven't said anything about it here.  Oops :-)

This year we'll be making rectangular blocks which measure 6-inch by 9-inch (finished size when they're sewn into a quilt). 

Our January block is this Tall Shoo Fly variation,  in colors inspired by my Holiday Lane pillow project: tomato RED, LIME green and BLACK & WHITE.  There's a link to the print-friendly directions from my Freebies page (click the block name there.) The blocks on the right are my contribution for January.

As always, I hope I that I've made choices that will appeal, that many lotto blocks will be made and entered in the drawing each month and that beautiful quilts will be made by the winners.   But it also makes me happy when quilters follow along and use them for their own projects and I love to see photos when they do. 

(I confess that I'm less than happy when quilters steal them and use them for commercial projects, but we'll leave that topic for another day.) 

This year, there will also be a little bit of discussion about the ways we can STRETCH some well-known blocks to create these stretched variations. 

The blocks this year can all be made from two colors (though we may not necessarily make them that way for the block lotto).  My plan is to make a very scrappy two-color sampler from this years blocks ... and if you'd like to play along, I'd love to hear about it.  

If you are thinking of using the Block Lotto 2013 as a BOM, here's a couple more considerations for designing your sampler quilt: 

• Half the blocks need a Tall orientation to make sense, but the other half will also work as short, wide blocks.  
• A couple of the blocks would work well as borders. 

A couple of simple layouts I am considering for a 60-inch by 90 inch quilt. The black rectangles represent the lotto blocks.  The black bars at the top and bottom are multiples of those two blocks that I said would work as borders. 

   

If you counted, you'll see that there's only 9 blocks + 2 blocks in the bars, or 11 blocks.  There will be 12 blocks ... and I will use one as the label on the back of my quilt. 

More information about this month's Lotto block is here: Tomatoes, Limes and Tall Shoo Flies.  Information about how to join the Block Lotto is here: Block Lotto Basics.