If you just joined us, welcome to the 100 Blocks Blog Tour! Each day we’ll list designers who contributed in some way to this amazing new issue.

Click on the links to visit their blogs for fun giveaways and ideas extraordinaire!

You could win this block by Karla Eisenach!

Be sure to poke around all the daily posts here, too for surprise giveaways all week long, including a post  from each QM editor about her block. And pick up your copy of 100 Blocks from Today’s Top Designers, at your local quilt shop or here.

You could win this block by Emily Herrick! It tessellates when placed side-by-side--very cool!

Today’s Featured Designers

1. Karla Eisenach: sweetwater.typepad.com
2. Gudrun Erla: gudrun.typepad.com
3. Beth Ferrier: applewd.com/blog
4. Sue Garman: suegarman.blogspot.com
5. Carolyn Goins: cpgdesigns.blogspot.com
6. Karen Griska: selvageblog.blogspot.com
7. Scott Hansen: bluenickelstudios.com
8. Pam Vieira-McGinnis: pamkittymorning.blogspot.com
9. Meg Hawkey: knot-ygirlsstitcheryclub.blogspot.com
10. Emily Herrick: crazyoldladiesquilts.blogspot.com
11. Paula Barnes: bonniebluequilts.wordpress.com
12. (Lynette Anderson is traveling and didn’t have her post up yesterday, but it’s there now: lynetteandersondesigns.typepad.com)

Also participating today: our publishing friends at C&T Publishing.

You could win this block by Paula Barnes!

Big Block Giveaway

In case you haven’t heard, we’re also giving away all 100 blocks to 100 lucky winners. Find the entry form here.

Who’s Making What?

We’ve created a flickr group where anyone can post 100 Blocks projects. Please add your project, too.

C&T sent books by their designers who are in 100 Blocks! These will be in the Big Bundle Giveaway!

Big Bundle Giveaway

Many of the designers, fabric companies and publishers are contributing prizes which we’ll award to one lucky winner at the end of the comments period. Be sure you enter by leaving a comment on the Big Bundle Giveaway post, which will appear on Friday, Nov. 13. The day won’t be unlucky at all!

You could win these gorgeous fat quarters from P&B Textiles!

Later today, we’ll announce Monday’s winners of free copies of 100 Blocks. Stay tuned!

I finished sewing a Quiltmaker project recently (from gorgeous Red Rooster fabrics) and had a bunch of patches left over.

I decided to play around and see what happened. The most obvious thing was to sew the rectangular patches together.

I made three strips like the one above.

I knew I wanted to use this fabric for some sashing. I love those little birds!

I sewed them together and liked what was happening:

I trimmed it up (no stressing over the irregularities) and started auditioning other possibilities.

Eventually decided against the red polka dots. A little too intense.

Landed here. I have an idea for the edge treatment, but first I’ll quilt the whole thing as a rectangle.

I love quilt basting spray for small quilts like this. I use just a few safety pins. I treated this as a practice piece for machine quilting. I tried all kinds of different ideas and it was really fun and relaxing. Here’a side shot of some clamshell-type quilting in the borders. It’s freeform, no marking and no stressing. I used pink thread.

Now I take the plunge: freeform cutting of the edges into soft, flowing curves.

I love it!  It’s just what the doctor ordered. In my next post, I’ll share a great tool for cutting bias binding strips, because of course on a curvy edge, bias binding works best.

We had a brainstorming meeting a while ago at work, and I started thinking about the concept of brainstorming and how I might apply it to ideas for artwork or quilts or quilted artwork. June guided the meeting and told us up front that no idea was off-limits; we should try not to respond positively or negatively to any idea; we should use ideas and comments to “jump off” into new ideas. In 30 minutes, we came up with more than 300 ideas. It was inspiring!

So I need to begin something new and creative in my work/sewing space at home, and I decided to brainstorm to get myself going. I’ve decided on a theme of “daughter.”

My daughter Holly and me

Here is the beginning of my brainstorm list:

DAUGHTER

sweet, precious, Holly, Elizabeth, fun, memories, May, writer, social concern, gift, love, Seattle, rainboots, funky, creative, cell phone, texting, Side-by-Side job, blogger, Holly Wood, loves Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner. My own mom, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, late-in-life-baby, helpmate, going for repairs, delivering livestock, lunch to the field, Venus as birthplace, saddle shoes, Fostoria American.

The list probably doesn’t mean much to you, but it has all kinds of emotions and associations for me, and I can see where it will be good fodder for a quilt design or a piece of artwork. Try it yourself–choose a theme and get started! We would welcome your musings as comments here on Quilty Pleasures. Let the brainstorming begin!