Tag Archives: Electric Quilt

The Ikea Effect??

Recently I heard a great interview on NPR and have thought a lot about it in relation to quilting–or at least in relation to my own quilting. It’s funny sometimes how I’m not sure whether two fabrics go together or whether a quilt layout really works, but by the time I’m finished I really like it.

Which brings me to the discussion of one of my weekend projects. I started out with some crumb blocks that Sherry had made and made more blocks to go with them using Elizabeth Hartmann’s improvisational piecing method. That requires a lot of rotary cutting and is too much like work. So, I started thinking about how I could do the same thing using my AccuQuilt GO cutter. That led me to think about how Sharon Schamber does piecelique, and I was on my way. I already had a block drawn in EQ7 that would work–an angled log cabin made in the same manner as the improv piecing. So, I cut strips with my AccuQuilt strip die and made some shortcuts to Sharon’s method and had a lot of fun making the blocks. I love gluing the strips together and then stitching them after the whole block has been assembled.

The plan was to use my Patience Corners quilt layout which puts sashing on two sides and turns the blocks in alternating directions. My daughter has asked for a new tablecloth quilt for her kitchen table (where the children eat a lot of their meals) because she doesn’t want to wear out the one she is using now. The current one is made from bright batiks in the Bento Box pattern. So, rather than using white sashing, I decided on a silver batik that would not show stains.

With all that said, here’s a picture of four blocks pinned to the design board. Not sure whether I like this or not. Since I’m spending time with grandchildren this week, I won’t look at this again until next weekend, so that will give me time to decide whether I like it or not.

IMG_2937

 

 

IMG_2947 IMG_2946 IMG_2945 IMG_2944 IMG_2942 IMG_2941 IMG_2940 IMG_2939 IMG_2938 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Progress on HST Quilt Top — And Winners!

The HST quilt top is moving along. There is only one vertical row to add to the horizontal rows. Then I will turn it and stitch all the horizontal rows. So far I really love it. Still not sure about the variegation of colors, but it may work. After doing the first couple of rows, I realized that because the triangles are not set in an ordered fashion, there will be some really bulky seam intersections. So, contrary to all my beliefs, I went back and pressed those triangle seams open. The seams from square to square will be pressed to the side. I think this is what will work best. However, I really believe I am going to have some points that just don’t meet perfectly–and that really bothers me when it’s my work. Doesn’t bother me a bit when it’s someone else’s quilt. Weird, huh?

And the quilt kit winners–ta da!

Janet Currier and Judy (email user name rcpjmp).  Quilt kits will be on the way to you shortly. You will be getting an email from me this morning. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Connector Block Tutorial for Halloween / Turtle Quilt

It’s raining cats and dogs here today – and more rain is on the way. It’s the sort of day that would be nice to curl up  and just knit or read a book all day. But I promised a tutorial for this quilt so here are the instructions for the connector block. This is an image of the connector block with fabric.

 This is the block showing the piecing:

These are the cutting instructions using the EDeN™ System.

Fabric Unit # # Needed per Block EDeN™ Number # Needed for Quilt
Light A 2 REC-1½ x 8 26
Light B 2 REC-1½x5 26
Light D 1 SQ-2 13
Dark B 2 REC-1½x5 26
Dark C 2 REC-1½x2 26

EDeN Numbers give the shape and size for cutting. All numbers given are finished sizes. Cut sizes should be 1/2” larger than the number given, i.e., 1½x8 should be cut as 2 x 8½. The abbreviations used here are: REC = rectangle; SQ = square

You can find more information about the EDeN system on the website.

This is the way that I would cut this block. I am going to tell you as a narrative without illlustrations, so I hope it is understandable. If not, please ask questions.

Light Fabric:

For the A unit, I would cut an 8 ½ ” strip across the width of fabric. This is an 8 ½ x 40” strip. Then I would fanfold that strip across the 2” strip die. This would yield 18-20 A units. I would repeat this step to make the remaining A units. Note that you do not need to fanfold the entire strip this time as you only need 6-8 more units.

But this leaves a strip that is now 8½ x approximately 24 inches. I would cut this to 5 ½  x 24” and fanfold it across the 2” strip die to cut 11 B units. Then I would cut a 5 ½” strip across the width of fabric and fanfold that across the 2” strip die. This will make 18-20 B units and with the ones that you cut previously, you will now have all the B units.

The D unit is the last unit of the light fabric and it can be cut entirely on the 2 ½” strip die. Cut 2 strips that are width of fabric on the 2 ½” strip cutter and then fanfold those 2 ½” strips across the strip die to make squares.

Dark Fabric:

Cut the B units as described above leaving the 5 ½ x 24” leftover from the second strip to be cut down and used for the C units.

The C units are cut 1 ½ x width of fabric (1 ½ x 40”) and then fanfold across the 2” strip die. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Quilting Books on my Kindle

Last night I discovered that I can get Quilting Books from Amazon IN COLOR on my Kindle Fire. Many of the books I have purchased have been B&W, so I never thought to look for quilting books. Probably all of you already know all this and have quilting books on your tablet or iPad. I was looking at the Baby Roller Rink quilt on Oh, Fransson! by Elizabeth Hartman and decided I would browse Amazon to see if she had that book. It came up as a Kindle book – and the preview was in color. I now have several quilting books on my Kindle including From Daisy to Paisley by Leah Day and Modern Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman. And, if you go to SewCalGal’s blog and scroll all the way down the right column and shop through her Amazon.com link – you’ll help support some of the giveaways she so generously provides to the quilting community.

Here’s what I have done on the triangles thus far. I finished piecing one of the t-shirt quilt tops and was able to get this many triangles done. I need 296 triangles for the whole quilt. Now of course I stitch more than one triangle at the end of a seam –what’s more fun–stitching triangles in beautiful colors or piecing a t-shirt quilt? These colors are so luscious.

And while I was driving back from the gym this morning, it occurred to me that I wanted to try something new with these. I’ve been stacking them in color groups. What if they are put into the quilt like variegated yarn, i.e., sorted by color groups, then a color order determined, and a certain number of squares of each color and then add them into the rows in that order – and the colors will create their own pattern within the main design. I have never done this before, but it will be fun to see what happens. 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

The best laid plans. . .

All that red and black fabric that I thought I had in my stash. . .well, it must have been too tempting for other projects because there was not enough left when I pulled it out to look at it. So, it was back to the drawing board for me. Since I have so many batiks and couldn’t decide on a single color, I decided to try a scrappy look. I played around with it in EQ and came up with this.

I knew babysitting was on the agenda today, so I quickly cut 4-1/2″ x 18″ strips from some fat quarters and half yards so that I could cut the triangles on the Accuquilt GO during baby’s nap this morning. One great advantage of the cutter is that it is so quiet – no motor, no noise at all. I layered several of the strips with the white background strips so the triangles would cut already layered and ready to stitch.

While I was rocking baby to sleep, Ezri (5-1/2 years old) was inside with me. She usually spends a lot of time quietly playing with Legos. After the baby was asleep, I walked into the kitchen and found Ezri cutting all my fabric strips into triangles–even the ones that hadn’t been layered. She had done a remarkable job of it – there were only two strips that had partial triangles – everything else was done perfectly. So, I spent awhile this afternoon layering the single triangles with background triangles. She was not at all interested in cutting white triangles – she only wanted to cut the colored fabric.

There are two t-shirt quilts sitting on my machine that must be pieced – so these triangles are ready to be the leaders and enders for those projects. It will be fun to get a third project out of the first two.

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Playing Around with Half Square Triangles

One of the best things about Electric Quilt software is that it lets you quilt whether or not you can sit at the machine and stitch. After being away from the machine and real quilting for awhile, I am absolutely itching to make some half square triangles. All I can say is “it must be an addiction of some sort.”

Sitting at my computer over the weekend, I started playing with half square triangles. I set up a horizontal layout 16 blocks x 16 blocks and set a single half square triangle into each block. Then I started rotating triangles, one at a time, until I came up with something I liked. If the triangles are 4 inches finished, the quilt will finish at almost 70 inches (depending on border/binding), and if the triangles are 3 inches finished, the quilt will finish at almost 50 inches (depending on border/binding).

I tried reversing the color scheme, but really didn’t like it. I like seeing the parallelograms with this coloring. I think this quilt could be good in different color schemes, even in light ocean blues and tans. But it also will be nice as a bold accent piece in a neutral room.

I don’t know when I will get this made, but I’m going to start making triangles as leaders and enders and see what happens. Have been saving black and red batiks for a couple of years from my monthly batik packs from Batiks, etc., so the fabric is already in my stash. And thanks to my AccuQuilt cutter, the entire set of 256 red and 256 black triangles can be cut in less than half an hour.

The first image is the EQ drawing of the quilt. The second image is the EQ layout drawing. In EQ, I add a quarter inch sashing around each block to get the layout image.

 

 

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Quilts of Valor and more

While working on the Quilts of Valor that are just completed, I also took the opportunity to make a ‘leaders and enders’ quilt for my grandson. These are squares and triangles that I kept beside the machine and are made from scraps leftover from other projects that I cut using the Accuquilt 3-1/2 inch strip cutter and the 3 inch finished half square triangle. The centers of each star are novelty prints.

The attic windows design seemed nicer than a standard sashing. This was a lot of fun to make and very quick to quilt using continuous curves in the 9 patch blocks and a single curvy line in the window frames.

 

 

And last – but not least – is the quilt label that I stitched for the Quilts of Valor. The main reason I purchased an embroidery machine was to make quilt labels – and then they never seemed to work very well. Finally, using a border from Embroidery Library and my own lettering, this is a very nice label.

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Safari Quilt for Wesley

Here’s a project that has been on the back burner for a long time, but for some reason the inspiration just wasn’t there. This is for my niece’s 5-year old son. He wants a wild animal quilt. First, the fabric we wanted disappeared almost as quickly as it was printed, and we didn’t get it. Then, for a year all the safari prints were in very soft colors. We wanted bright colors. Finally this print appeared and I bought it right away.

I also wanted to use machine embroidery on it and was pleased when Accuquilt came out with their zoo animals. But, there hasn’t been time to digitize those. Then I ran across this set of zoo animals from Embroidery Library. They look as if they were designed for this fabric. Sometimes it seems the stars must align for a quilt to be born.

The next step was to open EQ7 and see what could be created. I came up with a couple of designs and decided to start stitching. After two rows on the design wall, it was obvious that it was all wrong. The beautiful pinwheels and four patch blocks that I was using overwhelmed the print. The focus was to be the print and the embroidery, not the pieced blocks. Every time I looked at the blocks on the wall, my eye darted everywhere–there was no place for the eye to rest. Here’s what I had:

The rest of the story tomorrow. . . 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Linda’s Beautiful QOV Design

Linda in Arizona sent me this photo yesterday. I’m in love with this quilt. It is so beautiful with the rail fence blocks and the bordered star blocks. Linda used four strips on her rail fence blocks and rotated them around the center for a design that has a lot of movement and really focuses her star blocks at the same time. She used the machine embroidery stars that I designed – this is an update – at first I thought she used them without the applique shapes, but here are photos – she used a light blue fabric and the closeups show the blocks and stitching better.

 

 

 

 

Linda also sent the EQ7 file. Each block is 16 inches square, including the borders. The rail fence blocks use 2 inch strips and you can see that part of what makes this quilt so interesting is that the outer borders on the star blocks are different widths than the borders on the rail fence blocks. If you would like to have the EQ7 file, just leave a comment and I’ll send it to you.

And, I haven’t forgotten that you want to see my progress. Will give you photos tomorrow.

  
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie

 

Another Eight Pointed Star

This Quilts of Valor GO! for a Star has made me try things I never thought I would do. This 8 pointed star is one I have admired for years. I even bought the Accuquilt die. But I’ve always been intimidated by triangles and even more intimidated by these triangles. Well, I tried it anyway—so here’s a quick photo essay on putting this block together. The finished size is 9 inches, so if you make blocks to send for a Quilts of Valor submission you can add sashing to the sides to make it come up to 12-1/2 inches. If you’re going to make a top or a quilt, you don’t need anything except the minimum quilt / top size of 55 x 65 inches.

Here’s the finished block:

 

 These are the dies that I used for a 9 inch finished block:

 

This the number of pieces needed for each block:

This is how I constructed the star points:

 
 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Come again soon.

Marjorie