Betty the Block Builder

Or Bob the Block Builder. Maybe a Jennifer or a Courtney or a Liz? Whatever you call it or whomever you name it after, it’s all about the Fun of the Puzzle, the GenQ Block Builder.

Have you checked this out yet? In every issue of Generation Q we give you a little “game” of sorts.  Kind of like the crossword page in your newspaper or those annoying Suduko puzzles that challenge your mind and your patience.  But our puzzle, Q-bies, has only one answer….YOURS! Yep, everyone gets the Block Builder puzzle right because you make your own block from our basic starting point.

If you haven’t tried this before, check out our Building Blocks 101 Post here.

So here is our latest exercise for your quilt design brain muscles. Click on the block for a downloadable PDF to print and play with to your heart’s content.

Check out pages 11-13 of our Winter 2012 issue to see what some folks did with the last Block Builder starter block.

Name your block, color it in, and then send it off to us by Dec. 30 for consideration in our Spring 2013  issue, which hits shops beginning Feb. 19, 2013, and newsstands about two weeks later. Best of all, you can even win a prize pack from the Gen Q prize closet. Five entries will be shared in our next issue, with our favorite one getting the Grand Prize pack and the four runners up receiving free copies of that issue.

Maybe you can play this game with your mini-group and incite a little friendly sew-pal competition. Or here’s an idea: tell the peeps at  your local quilt shop they need to get some GenQ issues in their shop and sponsor a little contest of their own, sending us their top entries. OR, and this is one of our favorites, print off a bunch for your kids (or husbands or significant others) to work on while you are getting in some actual QST (Quality Sewing Time).

Many of our past winners have sent in multiple entries, too, because they had so much fun playing with pen and color and paper on our little puzzle. In fact one of our past winners (who has sent in five entries) gave us one we liked so much that we yanked it from Block Builder and asked her to sew it up as bonafide Playdate project for a future issue. And trust us, her design is going to wow you like it did us. All because she set aside that pencil-grinding Sudoku puzzle for something with a little more Q-bie style.

The deadline is Dec. 30. Email your Block Builder creation to scott@generationqmagazine.com. Don’t forget to include your name and contact details, as well as the name of your BB and maybe a sentence or two on how you came up with it. And who knows? Your block  might be featured in our next issue or even possibly in a future Playdate project. Could happen.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!!