If you’re itching to play along with us on Scott’s Block Builder game, well, it’s time to sharpen those pencils. Or styluses. Or fingers, if you’re a tablet jockey. (Does anybody even use pencils anymore, besides Melissa, who also claims to have a potato masher from the 1930s?)
Block Builder is a simple game based on a random doodle, which you turn into a quilt block design, based on (your) whim and fancy. Our Scott Hansen creates the doodle, or starter block, as it’s properly known, and then it’s up to you to make something wonderful of it. (Click here to read Scott’s Block Builder 101 post, which really gives you the low-down.
Here’s the doodle starter block, for Block Builder in our upcoming Winter issue:
Or go to page 13 of our Fall 2012 issue, where you can also see what some folks did with Scott’s previous doodle starter block.
Choose some colors and give your design a name, and then send it off to us for consideration in our Winter 2012 issue, which hits the shops and newsstands in early November. Best of all, you might win a prize. A prize for a doodle starter block. You gotta love that! Betcha nobody gives you anything for those scratchings you make during the staff meetings (except grief).
We love playing this game with quilty celebs, too. You just never know when we’ll toss some famous quilt book author a doodle to complete. And they dig right in! Just like we know some of you want to.
And while we’re on the subject of random inspiration, how many of you create a fab new block or quilt design from something you’ve seen in your daily life? We know one quilter who was mesmerized by the glazed donuts at her local grocery. (Not for eating. For their looks, all lined up and coated evenly with icing. Her next project had circular applique, natch.) And whole books have been written about quilts inspired by floor tiles. And teacher/author Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studio admits to being inspired by bridges and the lines of highway underpasses.
But back to Block Builder. You can do this. You really can. The deadline is Sept. 25. Email your Block Builder creation to scott@generationqmagazine.com, and who knows?
And just for grins, let’s have a little giveaway….Leave a comment telling us about something that has inspired you to design a block. We’ll pick one random commenter on Friday morning, and that person will win Maya Donenfeld’s inspiring new book, Reinvention: Sewing with Rescued Materials (Wiley, 2012). Here’s a little tease:
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Scott this loks like it could be fun I will take a wack at this… An by the way I also have a potatoe masher from the 30′s and I hand mixer to make whip cream… How’s that for oldies but goodies…
I have all the fabrics pulled out for a quilt that looks like a bridge I drove under one sunny blue sky day. We’ll see if I ever make it.
The weather. The rain inspires me to make a block devoted to rain gear.
melodyj(at)gmail(dot)com
There’s a gazebo in our park that has an awesome pattern in the panels that make up the walls. I’ve been sketching a design….but it’s not quite there yet
I’ve been eyeballing this building that I walk past everyday at work. I love the looks of the windows and think they would make a really cool looking quilt!
Southern California. Having moved from there, I often think of the things I love most and then go from there. It’s usually beach/sea life that begins my quest.
OK, I’m already working on this one.
I have done one quilt using my sister’s cat as the model – does that count? It was raffled off to raise money for the Inland Valley Humane Society.
Oh, and I have a vintage ratcheting jar opener that I use all the time!
The colors of the fabrics inspired me.
I walk every morning and the sidewalks always have some really interesting designs in them ~ maybe where there’s been a repair or just the way they laid out the design. I always think of measuring the squares too.
Oh, and I’ve got a potato masher that’s pretty darn old too!
Thanks for the giveaway.
My inspiration came from a sampler that I was making and wanted a paper-pieced cardinal. I was able to draft and. Construct a cardinal that sits on a branch looking cheerful!
I am inspired to design a quilt block when I look into my garden. So many shapes and colors.
Sometimes the designs of a fabric will inspire a quilt block also.
I love the colors of nature specially fall colors so I look to nature and the division of farmland.
so happy I’ve discovered your site.
the floor in a church in jackson hole. i took a picture and need to dig it out, thanks for the reminder!
Quite honestly its other peoples quilts and magazines like yours that inspire me. I am still fairly new to quilting so seeing all the hst quilts out there inspired me to go out of my comfort zone to play with various designs using hst’s. The quilt has turned out to be my best one so far. Thank you too everyone who posts pictures on line. You may never know it, but someone may start quilting someday because they seen your picture.
I’ve been inspired by logos that I see on TV. Never tried it, but I love the Mitsubishi logo in the upper left corner!
http://www.mitsubishicars.com/MMNA/jsp/index.do
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