A New Toy!

Posted on February 28, 2021 by zippyquilts

Photo courtesy of Electric Quilt

I’m a fan of Electric Quilt (EQ) software, having used it for many years. It allows me to design my own blocks and quilts, try out layouts and color combinations, and print yardage requirements. And star blocks of all sorts are just about my favorites, so when I saw recently that EQ has a new add-on featuring star quilts, I was sold!

The “Star Power” add-on is based on an out-of-print book by Judy Martin. I’m not sure how I missed this book, but I do not own it. (Are you hearing another excuse to buy the add-on?) The add-on includes all the blocks AND quilt designs from the book. Once the add-on is part of your own EQ you can edit the blocks and quilt designs or make your own quilt designs using Judy’s blocks.

The add-on includes many beautiful star blocks. (In fairness, the basic EQ program has a lot of star blocks as well.) I gravitated immediately to Judy’s collection of “simple stars” because I’ve never made stars like this! Here’s an example, exported from EQ (with a few color changes by me, of course).

Block by Judy Martin, modified in EQ8 by me

And once I’d seen those blocks, I integrated them with a chain block that came standard with my EQ8 software, changed colors a few times, added some borders, and generally fooled around with it until I had this:

Quilt design in EQ8 by me; star blocks designed by Judy Martin; chain block is part of EQ8 block library

The add-on includes a number of stunning designs by Judy, most of them more dramatic than my simple design. Here’s an example:

Example courtesy of Electric Quilt

I’m looking forward to making more star designs in EQ8 and then some quilts from those designs!

Do you use EQ? Other design software? I’d be interested to know.

Please note: This post is NOT sponsored by EQ; I choose products to review for this blog based solely on my own opinion.

I’m In, But…

Posted on February 21, 2021 by zippyquilts

The “My Favorite Color is Moda Sampler” came to my attention because Studio Stitch is offering it as a block of the month this year.

At the same time, I decided to abandon my temperature quilt, which left a lot of solid color yardage to be re-purposed.

Voila! I went to Studio Stitch and got the pattern booklet to re-purpose the temperature quilt fabrics! Of course I don’t follow directions, so I re-drafted Block 1 to change the color scheme and construction methods.

My re-drafted block is constructed as a medallion rather than as the complex 9-patch construction in the Moda booklet. It’s neither better nor worse, but presents different challenges. Here are a few tips for having all those points “come out right”:

Of course you already have cut carefully and obtained a uniform scant 1/4″ seam allowance. Alas, that isn’t enough!
Where points come together, lay the blocks right sides together (RST) as they will be stitched and stick a pin straight through at the point where two fabrics interesect on block 1 and into the point where fabrics intersect in block 2 in order to match up these points. Keep the pin vertical while you insert pins on either side of it to hold the blocks in place. Then remove the vertical pin.
Baste part of the seam, starting about 1″ before the intersection and ending about 1″ after the intersection. I just use the longest stitch on my machine for this. Gently open the seam and check the points. If the match is perfect, return to regular stitch length and stitch the whole seam. If it’s not perfect, just remove the basting and try again.
When joining rows where multiple points need to match up, do steps 2 and 3 for each of the points! If one side is a little too long between points, stitch with that side down and the feed dogs will take up the slack.
Set your own standard for what constitutes a perfect match! If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for anybody else!
My personal standard is “if it’s less than 1/16th inch off, leave it alone! I can see the slight mis-match in the upper left, but really, who cares?

Have fun!

And a big THANK YOU to folks who made suggestions for how I can re-purpose the strips I’ve already made for the temperature quilt. I almost threw them out! Now I have some nice ideas on what to do with them. To be continued.

Design Floor/Exercise Tool

Posted on February 14, 2021 by zippyquilts

Sitting quietly,
doing nothing, spring comes
and the grass grows by itself.
–Basho

OK, it’s not exactly quilting, but this is one of my favorite haiku, and we certainly need spring. Enough said.

On to quilting…

We’re presently in transitional housing while our new home is being built, and I’m putting nothing on the walls. Here are a couple of improvised design wall alternatives as well as a report on the progress of a couple of quilts.

The Temperature Quilt

I love the idea of a temperature quilt and started this one early in 2020. Then we got going on the new house and my attention was elsewhere for several months. Finally I got back to the temperature quilt and hung the first 6 strips (January-June) on my improvised design wall. FYI, this beige flannel backing fabric (108″ wide) makes a great design wall when hung over the stair rail.

Unfortunately, I found it tedious and not every interesting to carefully transcribe temperatures to colors and arrange them in order. Therefore, this quilt has been abandoned. I have no idea what I’ll do with these strips, but the remaining yardage has been repurposed already 😀

The 9″ Swap Blocks

One of my quilt groups has been exchanging swap blocks each month and we now have more than enough for a quilt or two. Here’s a layout for my first quilt, shown on the design floor.

The design floor has been a feature of several of our houses. As long as there’s a loft on the second floor that overlooks the first floor (usually the living room) I can get both a design floor and an exercise plan. Here’s how it works:

Lay out blocks on floor

Run up the stairs and look down to evaluate the layout

Run down and move some blocks

Run up and re-evaluate

Run down and move some blocks

Repeat, repeat, repeat…

So you see, having a design floor is a great exercise tool 😀

And here’s the quilt top sewn together:

Anyone else have quilting exercise programs to suggest? 😀

Bad*ss Women!

Posted on February 7, 2021 by zippyquilts

One of the fun books I’ve received from C&T recently contains transfers to be used for either embroidery or painting. The title is Bad*ss Women and it includes a variety of prominent women both contemporary and historical. Here are a few of them (photos courtesy of C&T). You can click on each one to see it better.

20460_bad-ass-women_misty-copeland_final-art_5-01

A friend and her granddaughter are making a quilt from these transfers, painting the pictures with fabric pens. I love this idea and would be doing the same if I had a granddaughter. I was very pleased to see Nancy Pelosi included. I would have included Mother Theresa, but perhaps the author (or editor) thought calling her a Badass Woman would have been disrespectful. Anyway, I just love the idea of traditionally female fiber arts celebrating prominent women.