Sampler Quilts - Love 'em or Hate 'em?

This month is "Quilter's Choice" for the Block Lotto.  In recent years the winners of Quilter's Choice months have made some really beautiful sampler quilts.  I know that they aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I think that sampler quilts with an interesting setting are beautiful.

For my blocks this month, I decided to remake some of my favorite lotto blocks from year's past--from 2001 to 2010.

This little girl with the big hat and long legs is a variation on the "boomerette" Julie designed when we made the traditional Oklahoma Boomer blocks, in July 2009.

This month's guidelines ask quilters to to put an 8 inch purple and white block of their choice on point, adding scrappy strings to the sides to create setting triangles, finishing with a 12 inch block.

This house is another variation of an original block, the Amish Houses we made in November of 2008.

I rotated the paper foundation and stretched the house to make it taller to fill the 8 inch block. I still love this minimalist house block design of mine.

For this month, our block choices may be traditional or liberated blocks.  I ended up playing with a little bit of everything, from hand appliqué to paper foundation piecing.

Below are a variation of Polka Dot, from December 2009, Laced Star, from February 2003, and a "double" double 4-patch, from January, 2007.

As much as I enjoyed my trip down Block Lotto memory lane, I couldn't resist making a new block, Posy (from the Quilter's Cache Site), along with a re-sized Double Wrench from August 2003 and last month's liberated Variable Star.

My links go to the photos of the lotto blocks which inspired my choices. If you're interested in tracking down the patterns for any of the blocks, you can find them in the Block Pattern list on the Block Lotto blog . . . along with those for every other lotto block we've made since January 2002.

I really intended to have SOME sort of actual design wall in place this week so I could post an actual design wall photo for Judy's Design Wall Monday, but it still hasn't happened.  I picked up a flannel backed tablecloth today because it has been making me a little crazy to work without one.

As a consolation to those who followed the link from Judy's blog, I offer you this virtual design wall of the lotto sampler blocks made so far by the sneak peekers (who received an advance look at the November guidelines.)

This virtual quilt contains my blocks, as well as those from Caroline, Christina, Ginny, Janet (S), Kasey, Kim, Linnea and Maree. Click any of the individual block photos to find out who made it and for a better look.

If you love sampler quilts, too, you might want to come join us this month ;-) 

 If you haven't yet checked out the "design wall Monday" around blog land, you can still enjoy the eye candy--check out the links at the bottom of Judy's blog post.