Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Designing with EQ7

I love playing with colors and designs in EQ7. I recently tried designing a One Block Wonder quilt and needed to have a way of separating the blocks as I am using a blue/white print with only a 7 inch repeat. It's amazing how many different blocks I am getting from this fabric.
So design #1 was simply adding white triangles between the hexagons.
This looked better on paper than on my design wall. The white was just to bright and detracted from the hexagon blocks, plus it just looked boring.
I liked the way the white stars appeared as a secondary pattern.
So I went back to my computer and played around with adding blue triangles to create blue and white stars. I liked this, and since I only had 5 rows completed with Design 1, I decided to rip the rows apart and switch to this pattern.
This time I had the 5 rows put together and realized that once again the design simply was not speaking to me.
But I do love that diamond shape that is appearing between the stars!


Alright! I think. This is definitely "THE ONE". Once again I have to rip out some rows, and reconstruct the firs 5 rows. I also am not going to mess with the design anymore...or so I thought.
My next fatal move is to look at some quilts at the York County Quilt show that included awesome applique designs. I just love applique, and then it hits me....this quilt need applique..that would make it so interesting. Hmmm.... But I have 7 rows done now...surely I won't even consider redoing the design ! Ok so applique on the borders, that's what I will do. But no, I want to use my print fabric on the borders to show the fabric that I used to create all the blocks.
And here it is....my FINAL design.inwill do some kind of applique in that white diamond. The diamond measures around 30" wide in the middle and 45" tall, so plenty of space to do some fun applique. Have to come up with a pattern and decide if I want to keep it all blue/white/silver or add a splash of color. I now have 9 of the 15 rows completed and there is no turning back.
Here is a picture of my progress so far and a closeup of the blocks. These were taken In my sewing room at night, and the light is not so good, but at least you Have an idea of how it is progressing. Only shows 7 rows... But I have two more that I will need to use in the bottom of the quilt.
Wish me luck!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Patchwork of the Crosses Blocks

I have been posting my blocks as I complete them as a kind of timeline for how long it is taking me to make these blocks. It has been awhile since I last posted, and during that time I finished ten more blocks. Sooooooo....lots of pictures follow. I now have 41 blocks completed out of 56 needed for the Queensize quilt. I see the light at the end of this tunnel. To be honest, this is one journey I will be sad to finish, as I have enjoyed each and everyone of the blocks, from searching for fabrics, matching up fabrics for each block and the making the block. I just wish I had kept a list of all the different shops I have bought fabric!

I noticed on some of the pictures, I have them turned sideways. I started to fix that, but you know, some may end up in my quilt that way too! I started out using only reproduction fabrics, but got bored with all the dull colors, so had to add some brighter tones now now then.

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 

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