Under the Stars

Hello all!

The holidays are over and the house is somewhat clean from all the festivities.  I still have to take down the Christmas knick knacks and put up the January snowmen knick knacks, but I've been working on a new project that has become a passion.

A friend of mine (you know who you are Heather...) asked me if I'd like to help her take over the Block of the Month (BOM) program for our quilting guild (Northern Lake County Quilter's Guild).  I had been thinking about doing this for a while now, so I said yes.  The other reason I said yes is that I have wanted to start designing quilts and this would get me off my duff and make that dream happen.

We decided to shake things up a bit for the ladies of the guild and have a theme for all the blocks this year.  We are calling it "Under the Stars" because all the blocks will have a star theme.  Each month, we get to choose a block everyone will make.  They turn in their completed blocks for a chance to win them all - enough to make a nice size quilt. 

We have issued a challenge to our quilters to also make a block for themselves.  At the end of the year they will have enough for a sampler quilt - following what a more traditional BOM is like.  They then will put it together for judging by the rest of the guild.  At this point, I have no idea what each block will  be or what MY finished quilt will look like, but I'm excited to find out.

I'd like to invite all of you to join in the BOM.  I am going to try my hand at writing instructions for each block and we are going to start out easy.  Each month will add a new challenge or different technique for construction.  We all have our favorite ways of making block piecess like Half Square Triangles (HST) but I hope you will enjoy experimenting with some different ways to create them.  Who knows, we may even try the dreaded "A" word (those who know me, know how much I don't like to do applique).

Don't forget to let me know how I'm doing so I can get better at this!  Let the fun begin!