Let the blog begin...

It's all my friend Cathi's fault - she recently started a quilting blog, and although I've been resisting due to not having enough time in the day, I finally decided it was a good idea - for one thing, it's a way for me to keep track of how much time I am spending on various quilting related things, just for my own information. Whether many others will read it or not, doesn't really matter...but then again, perhaps it's an easy answer to the question "so what have you been working on lately".

So, what have I been working on lately? Yesterday, I did a block for the September Block Lotto on quilting.about.com - I can't share a photo of that, because it's still in the sneak peek stage and not public yet, but I really liked the block and made some more today. When it becomes public, I'll put the pics up. A block lotto is when you make a number of blocks (usually limited to 5 or 6) and send them in to a central hostess - at the end of the month, she draws lots for the blocks, based on how many blocks you sent in. Depending on the total number of blocks received and precisely how the lottery is run (different people use different methods) you might win all or some of the blocks. Sophie, the hostess for the About lottos, keeps a blog of her own about her swaps and lottos.

Yesterday I also put a binding on a quilt for a black and white challenge I am doing with my virtual quilt group. This is a group I've been with for a long time - some of you may remember the house/building quilt I originally made from the blocks I received from our first swap. We've done other swaps and challenges each year - usually alternating a swap then a challenge - I think this is our 5th. There weren't a lot of rules to this one - we had to use black and white in the quilt - can't remember if we said a minimum percentage - and the quilt had to be within a certain diameter range, only so they'd be easy to hang together at Hever Quilt Show in September. I still need to sew the binding down (it's just black) but I think the quilt looks fun.

Today, in addition to making another block for the block lotto, I also made my first (test) block for a Christmas swap I am doing with Scrap Quilting Forum on Delphi Forums. I have hosted a number of swaps there, but this one isn't one I'm hosting. We are all making the same block, in different Christmas prints - I haven't got a Christmas quilt, so I thought this would be fun.