Monthly Archives: November 2023

What Was I Thinking?!?

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I found this unusual pattern at Five Little Monkeys and liked the look of it.

The pattern wanted me to buy a 120 degree triangle ruler, but after discussion with a math-loving friend I decided to try cutting those 120 degree angles using the 60 degree line on my long ruler.

It worked, sort of. After making a few blocks that way I concluded that the price of the recommended triangle ruler was less than the price of the fabric and time I wasted trying to get the triangles right.

The result was that some of the triangles for the quilt were cut with one method, some with the other. However, the real oversight on my part was failure to notice that there are places in this quilt where TWELVE points come together! Or don’t actually come together, in my case. Yikes!

I do love this quilt. It is a striking design that works well with these bright fabrics.  So I’ll make do with these points that don’t match and use my own little trite saying for this situation: “A good quilt is a done quilt!” (Thanks, Diana, for this insight years ago in another context!)

Quilt stats

Name: Oops

Finished size: 54″ x 63″

Pattern: Henry’s Humongous Hexagons by Carl Hentsch

Made by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

Tamarack Center, West Virginia

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We recently travelled to West Virginia on vacation, and I thought I would share some of the quilts displayed at Tamarack Marketplace, the state craft shop and travel center near Beckley.

Of course I was interested in the quilts displayed there. Here are a few pictures to give you the idea.

This is a large quilt, along with some hand-crafted tables in the foreground

I had to get between two sculptures, impinging on the sides here, to get a photo of this large quilt

This is one block of a quilt that was quilted by hand and had a 3-dimensional flower superimposed on a star in each block. It looked like a lot of work!

Most of the quilts were traditional in design. You can see a display of lamps in the background.

This quilt was especially well made, and was hand quilted. The price was $3000.

This lively quilt of Hawaiian themed fabrics was the closest I saw to a modern quilt at Tamarack

Of course there were many other arts and crafts, not just quilts. If you’re travelling through West Virginia on the toll portion of I-64, in the southern part of the state, the Tamarack center is worth a stop. Here’s the website so you can see for yourself.

 

More Quilts!

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I just finished a quilt but then I cleaned up around the studio and found another stack of quilts I don’t think I have blogged about!

The good news is that three of these were for the magazine article, so I showed them last week! And the one on top I wrote about a few weeks ago. Here are the rest. First, the new quilt:

This little owl was made from a kit I found at Studio Stitch. I’m not saying for whom, because the holiday season approaches!

Quilt Stats

Name: Little Owl

Finished size: 39″ x 45″

Pieced and quilted by me

Pattern by: Bound Co.

Kit from: Studio Stitch

Then there’s this New York Beauty quilt I made in 2022 so I could try out various alternatives to piecing with paper that has to be torn out. I don’t think I ever presented the entire quilt. It started when my friend Elizabeth provided free patterns for NYB blocks, then I designed some with EQ, and so forth. Somewhere along the way I forgot to show the finished quilt.

Quilt Stats

Name: NYB

Finished size: 52″ x 52″

Blocks designed by Elizabeth Eastmond and currently available free in her PayHip shop

Setting designed by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

And finally, here’s a quilt I’m calling Valley of the Kings because of the Ancient-Egyptian themed metallic fabric that inspired it. I bought that fabric perhaps 10 years ago, so it was time!

Quilt Stats

Name: Valley of the Kings

Finished size: 60″ x 71″

Designed and made by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

Whew! Now I’ll try to keep up 😀

 

Electric Quilt, and Why I Use It

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I’ve been using the quilt design software Electric Quilt (EQ) since the EQ5 version. I’m now using EQ8, so it’s been a few years. OK, quite a few.

All the drawings in this post were done with various versions of EQ.

I love EQ for several reasons:

  • I like to design my own quilts. At first I didn’t have many ideas, so I just combined the blocks provided by EQ in various ways. There are almost endless possibilities. Here’s where I re-drew Arkansas Crossroads to see how it would look with a scrap slab center.
  • Once a quilt is designed, it can be exported as a JPEG to share with friends! That’s how I got the pictures in this post from EQ to the blog 😀 Here’s one from 2007:
  • I can fiddle endlessly with various layouts, block sizes, colors, etc, etc. before deciding how I want to do a quilt. Here are a few options I considered for a doll quilt for a friend.
  • When the instructions in a pattern don’t work out, or the size of the quilt doesn’t suit me, I can draw the quilt in EQ and try out various solutions. Here’s a block I re-drafted after the instructions in the pattern didn’t really work. And by the way, I was able to print templates straight from EQ in the desired size once I got it re-drafted.
  • AND on top of all that: the block above was colored with my actual fabric because I was able to scan the fabric into EQ, scale it, and then fussy cut the block center from it!
  • It’s possible to make everything from simple to elaborate designs.
  • EQ gives me an estimate of the yardage needed for a quilt. It does over-estimate a bit, but of course that’s waaaay better than underestimating! So, for example, I drew this quilt and then decided what size I could make it based on how much fabric I have. I can change the size of the blocks until the quilt fits my yardage!
  • I just like to draw things in EQ for fun. Here’s a tile floor I photographed in a restaurant and then drew in EQ. No way would I make this, but it was fun to draw. The asymmetry shown was indeed in the floor from which I copied the design.

There are sooo many other things I love about EQ! I’ve just taken the on-line classes to learn to use it better and they were very helpful.

And finally, the folks at EQ provide wonderful customer service. A friend and I both failed to figure out how to draw the quilt below in EQ. I emailed tech support about it and Heidi drew it for me! She also sent a link to a lesson on how it was done 😀 That’s great customer service!

I get so much use out of this program! Have you tried it?

PS: No, this is NOT a sponsored post! But here’s the link if you want to learn more about EQ8: ElectricQuilt.com  

The EQ folks have a video program for guilds, too. Don’t know about you, but we’re always looking for program ideas.