Temptation Island - Trial and Error Tuesday

Temptation is everywhere in blogland.  I seem to be constantly suckered into buying fabric because of beautiful pictures on someone's post.  Over our vacation to Maui (aka Temptation Island - well at least for this post), I ran into a different type of temptation, but first let me lead you down the path.

Alyssa over at Pile O'Fabric has a few interesting series going on for beginners.  One is just getting started, the "Beginners Quilting Tutorial Series" and she has a great post on fabric here.  I can't wait to see what other tutorials will be in the series.  The other she calls "Quilting and Sewing Events 101 Series", the latest post is here on Quilt alongs (a must read if you are tempted).

Now I recently tried my hand at a quilt bee, and liked it.  I'm part of the 3 x 6 Bee group on flickr.  The 3 x 6 means that I had 3 months to make 6 people one block each (the same block).  I imagine that they will be having sign ups for next quarter soon if you want to check out the group here.

I also recently went to a quilt guild meeting, not the guild that is local to me, but one up in the mountains where we frequently visit.  I was turned off by a few of the ladies in the local guild, but a friend of mine asked me to try out the mountain guild.  Having a friend involved immediately makes it more fun.  The mountain guild is heavily focused on charity quilts most of the year.  I really like the idea of doing a few quilts a year for charities, so that part was OK with me.  Coming up in October, they have a little quilt show of their own (most of the proceeds go to charity too).  They meet once month on a Saturday, and are pretty relaxed about attendance.  Sounded good to me!

OK, Jen, when are we getting to the temptation???  Well, Alyssa's post on the quilt alongs spurred me to take a look around blogland.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) I guess the end of summer is quite the popular time to get these started because they were everywhere.  And of course, I wanted to do them all!  Here are just a few that caught my eye:

• The Vintage Holiday Quilt Along at Fabric Mutt.  This pattern is too cute, and I feel lacking in the holiday quilt area....

• The Totally Groovy Quilt Along at Pile O'Fabric.  Alyssa followed up her series post with a quilt along of her own.  The pattern is not something I would normally choose, but I can see it being a skill builder and it might look great in masculine colors (and make a great gift for a guy in my life).

• The Great Granny Quilt Along at Bee In My Bonnet - currently in week 2, but you can still join up!  I just love this block.  Lori also has a fabulous tutorial on how to make a portable design board.  I'm definitely going to have to try that out!

• The Lillybelle Hexy MF Quilt Along at Fat Quarterly - I'm finding it hard to resist the call of paper pieced hexies.  Just look at all the lovely flowers in the flickr group!
• The How Far Will You Go Quilt Along at The Elven Garden - this one looks like a great skill builder, and you get a neat sampler at the end.

It is IRONIC that I am interrupting my regularly scheduled show & tell of the blocks for the Beginner's Quilt Along that I didn't have time to catch up on since returning from vacation!  Ha!

What about you?  Are you quilting along with anyone at the moment?  Care to try out any of the above with me?

Jen