It's Coming Along

My design wall has almost an entire quilt on it!  I finished with the *&#$@!!! sashing.  What a pain -- bias edges and I had to be careful to get the colors in the right places.

Still not sure about the block placement.  I think it's because I don't like all the blocks.  There are at least two, and maybe even three, that I really don't like anymore.  But I'm going to leave them in there.

I worked up a couple more feathered stars in EQ7.  I think Beth is right and they are maybe too much for this quilt.

But I could get rid of at least one of the blocks that I'm not liking.  Of course, I have to make the feathered stars out of fabric first...

To see other design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.

BOM Stars for September

Yesterday was the meeting for my 2011 BOM group.  This month we did the Lucky Star -- which I didn't do.

And the Morning Star.  Which I did do.  That's mine at the lower right.  This was a paper pieced block.  I fussy cut the center pieces with templates.  

The trouble is, I didn't allow for the fact that paper piecing is done backwards.  So when I cut out my little pieces, they were going the wrong way.  And then I had to paper piece it from the wrong side.  Sheesh!

So my star spins in a different direction than the others  (It's a lot like me, I suppose).

The little one in the group picture also spins backward, but I think that's because she did hers in EQ7 so that she could print it out in the smaller size.  I don't know how she got it reversed though.  Maybe she just liked it better that way.

Also yesterday, I packed up my "Pieceful Tigers" and the pelican quilt and shipped them off for the AQS show in Des Moines.  The tiger quilt is here and the pelican quilt is here.

Oh -- and it wasn't the Saints playing the Packers last night -- that's the season opener next week.  Last night, they beat played the Chiefs.  

Summer Sewing with DD

With summer school a fading memory and middle school rapidly approaching, I needed a fun project for my daughter and I to do together.  I saw this adorable Halloween cat fabric and a cute quilt made from it and thought it would be a really good project for us to do together.

Of course I cheaped out and didn't buy the pattern, so I had to make my own on EQ.


We had fun sewing the strip sets together.  I did the cutting and she did most of the sewing.

For a look at some other design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Swap Blocks

These are the blocks I sent out.

The theme for this was "Mexican fiesta."  I went for a Mexican tile look. I used my own hand-dyes for this.

I designed it in EQ7 and played around with the colors until I was happy.  It was tricky, but not impossible to piece -- the corners are like Lemoyne stars.



I have always loved Mexican tiles -- someday I want to live in a house that has stairs with tiles set into the risers.

I had a little fun setting this block into virtual quilts.

This is just a plain straight set with borders.  I absolutely love these colors.

This is the same block set on point.

This is the original block set on point alternated with the same block in a different colorway.  I think I like this one the best.

And one more with alternate colorways.  I like the way the red lines connect with the red "tiles."

This block was for a teapot theme -- I thought about making a bunch of tea cups, but when I found this fabric, I knew it just had to be a teapot.The colors were supposed to be blue, white, yellow, and green.   I used bits of my own hand-dyed fabrics for the background, spout, lid, handle and base.  The main part of the pot was fussy cut from some Jason Yenter Camelot fabric.

More Goofing Off With Spinning Stars

 In the previous post I shared a small star quilt created in EQ7 that had some mistakes in the block, so the patches had color where I didn't intend color.  I have fixed that block and made a couple more virtual quilts.

I love the way that they seem to glow with the lightest colors in the centers.  Well, that's enough fun.  Back to work.

Goofing Off with Spinning Stars

Yesterday, I saw a beautiful "Spinning Stars" quilt at "Musings from the Deep South" which is here.

So I just had to figure it out in EQ7.  It took less time than I thought it would.  But I had help from here and here.

It was trickier than I thought it would be and I made a couple of mistakes coloring it because I didn't close off my patches properly.  I might go back and do that when I have more time.  Turns out -- when you set the blocks in the quilt, you have to rotate every other row to get it to come out right.  So here is a small sample.

And it took way less time to do it in EQ than it would have for real.  

When Pigs Fly Into My Mailbox

I have been participating in a block swap with my Sparkly Chicken friends.  Yesterday, my first block arrived in the mail.  A pig on point!  With wings!  Made from bright pink hand-dyes!

(Please forgive the thready mess on my design wall.)

It's a Fat Cat design.  And it came with this adorable embroidered hippo.  My friend, Beth, who lives in South Africa and blogs here made the pig and sent the hippo.



The story that came with it is "A Hippo Swallowed a Girl."  There is lots more information about it here at Tambani Textiles.

For January, the block I sent out was supposed to have a beach theme.  So what is better than an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini?





Only trouble was, I had envisioned a red bikini with yellow dots and couldn't find anything in my stash of dots and spots like that.  Which is really surprising because I've been collecting spots and polka dots for years.

  So I took some red with white polka dots and colored them yellow with Tsukineko inks.  Then I fused the pieces onto the beach background and stitched around the edges.


This month, my mission was a "Happy House" block.  the colors were supposed to be blues, yellows, greens and purples.

I took a house block from EQ7 and played around with it until I was happy and made this:

I used some of the fabric from the flour-resist experiments for the front walk.  And because it was for a Sparkly Chicken friend, I had to add some chicks and chickens.

Homeless Monday

This is my design wall for today.  I'm making a happy home block for a swap.  I created it in EQ7 and pulled out some fun fabrics from my stash.  The walkway is some of the fabric from the rice flour resist project.  I had to redo the picket fence three times before I was happy with it.  But what home would be happy without a picket fence?  Actually, mine is just fine without one.

I can't show any more than this because it's supposed to be a surprise.  Shhhh...

For more design wall posts, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Blue and Green Monday

The blue and green quilt is back up on my design wall today.  I have sewn together all the center blocks and started piecing bits for the inner border and frames for the appliqué blocks.  But wait!  What is that monstrosity?  The one in the upper right corner?

Oh!  It's the result of Extreme Hubris, Inattention, Arrogance, and Egotistical Pomposity.  This is what happens when a block is designed in EQ7 and the designer of said block doesn't bother to really read the measurements but just goes ahead and starts cutting and sewing stuff together.

This is what it is supposed to look like.

To see what other people have on their design walls today, click here for Judy's blog.

Stars With Pizazz

I have been working my way through the blocks in the pattern my First Thursday Piecers group has been doing, but I was getting bored with the blocks.  Part of that is my usual reluctance to do "someone else's work" and part is due to my desire to be challenged.  So I got out my EQ7 program (which doesn't need the internet to work once it's set up) and created some new stars.

This block was inspired by a quilt I saw at Quilt Expo last week.  Of course, I had to make it different for me.

This block is one I saw in the latest issue of Quilter's Newsletter called "Double Windmill."  I recreated it in EQ because then I could play with it in my virtual quilts.  Also, I wanted to do different colors and values than they did.  That was easy to do once I had it in my virtual sketchbook.

You can get directions for it here.  Apparently it's in the block library, but I didn't really look for it -- I was having too much fun trying to create it in Patch Draw.

This feathered star was in the block library, but I added the little rays in the background areas.  I'm not afraid of set-in or partial seams, but this was a nightmare to sew together.    I pretty much used the directions in this book (click here), but Marsha McCloskey must not be a smarty pants.  All of her stars have half-square triangles here where the little green squares are, which makes piecing them much easier.  Oh well, I wanted a challenge.

This was the first of the virtual quilts I made.  I put the feathered star in the middle to showcase it, but I think it's too, um, feathery.  It's too light for the middle --it looks insubstantial there.  I haven't made the star that's in the four corners yet.  It's next on my agenda.

Once I had them created in EQ, it was easy to make up a bunch of quilts.  I would never make these in real life because I would never want to make more than one of a block.  But it's fun to play.  I really like the secondary pattern the rays create here.

This is more of a sampler -- but it still has four of each of the new stars.  I like the way that EQ allowed me to use part of the star in the triangles on the edges.  I think I still need to add a couple of borders on this one.

Chubby Stars and Chain Blocks

A couple of posts ago, I started playing in EQ7with the Chubby Stars that Tracey at TracyJay Quilts is featuring in her Quilt Along.  I have figured out how to do it with the chain block in between the snowball blocks.



What a fabulous quilt this makes!  This is the twin size layout.

Here is the Full/Queen size layout.  I saved it without the lines between the patches.

And just for fun, I recolored it in the throw size.

I did one in king size.  With border blocks that complete the chain.

Chubby Stars, EQ7, and a Couple of Rhinos

While blog-hopping, I discovered these really cool stars: Chubby Stars!  They are part of a "Chubby Stars Quilt Along" by Tracy at Tracyjay Quilts.  She has a button you can add to your blog:

And all kinds of information about it on her blog.  Tracey kindly gave me permission to feature it here on my blog.

I don't have time to join -- although it's tempting.  But I love this block.  OK, I pretty much love all stars.  But this one is unusual and, depending on the fabrics and values one chooses,  it could have some pretty cool secondary patterns in a really beautiful quilt.

In my Third Thursday EQ class, we were assigned homework.  Pick a quilt and figure it out in EQ.  Easy peasy, huh?  Well, that all depends on the quilt.  And the blocks.  And because my EQ skills are, um, shall we say, developing?  Not so easy.  So I drew the block in "patchdraw."  It took me several tries before I got it right.  I finally figured out the correct grid values, and, VOILA!  It was easy!

Then I played with the cornerstones.

After I figured out the blocks,  I could play with values and colors.

I like 'em all.  Thanks, Tracey!

Beth wanted to know which of the fiberglass animals at the zoo yesterday was my favorite.  I liked a lot of them -- and took pictures of most of them.  This rhino was my favorite.








The backbone and tail were a snake!  So cool.




And just for reference, here is the real thing.