For the last 14 months I've had the honor of participating in Block Swap Adventure's monthly block swaps. Each is a challenge in it's own way, which makes for a lot of fun. And the blocks I get in return are shaping up to be a terrific quilt for my family room.

My May block, a traditional block with Civil War era fabrics, was quite a treat to create. I don't do traditional very often, and I don't do Civil War fabrics, so a fair amount of research went into creating this one. It was great fun learning more about the history of traditional blocks, I had no idea just how much there was to learn. The block this is based on is a Louisiana block.

Tutorial here on Civil War Quilts blog. She offers tutorials for 8" blocks so I added a border to get to a 12.5" block.

I hope that I'm able to give the recipient a block that works for her, but that also has a bit of me in it.

Click the "sneak peek" image to see the complete block.

This second block, for the June swap, was asked to be a Solstice Stars block in modern colors and white.

Just for fun I modified the pattern, thinking it would make it easier. It did, except that I cut some of the pieces too long and had to go back and shorten them. Oops.

I may go back and do a few more of the Solstice Stars blocks for myself, they are really cute. They could easily be mixed with other star or even 9-patch blocks for a quilt top.

The tutorial at for this block can be found at Fresh Lemon Quilts ... I made the Two Colors Star, though I did adapt it a little to use fewer pieces.

Clicking the "sneak peek" will take you to a view of the whole square.