Only 18 blocks left to quilt - hurrah!
Seems months - it IS months! - since Esther cut the
batting (wadding) for her Odeon quilt and we sent it
to be machine basted
I can't recommend enough having the layers
tacked together by machine, particularly if
you're a hand-quilter with bad knees or a bad back.
It's worth its weight in gold!
My quilting friends offered to do a Team Baste, bless 'em,
but some of them aren't good after leaning
over a table, so this seemed a very good option.
By the way ...
Look at this lovely little stained glass wall hanging -
A perfect match for my quilt, or what?
Couldn't believe how similar it was in colour and style
"EQ - what?"
Those who've never seen Electric Quilt
in action might be interested in a brief view of how
the programme helped me design the Odeon quilt
For the basic layout I chose a 9-block by 8-block
horizontal grid and added vertical sashing and a border
Next I added quarter log cabin blocks,
inserting them right across the grid and flipping some
horizontally to get a mirror image.
Colouring the block is easy - just the touch of a button.
EQ comes with libraries of blocks, fabrics, applique
patterns and basic quilt layouts, and new fabrics are
added free every month. You can also download
ranges you like direct from the manufacturers website.
For OdeonI just used library fabrics that were roughly
the colours I wanted and refined the choice later.
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| EQ6 planning page |
Esther wears jade a lot and loves browns and creams,
so those seemed a natural starting point. I've never used batiks,
but the more I thought about the more it seemed the way to go.
Bought most of them at the wonderful Web Fabrics at
Purcellville VA,and then trawled the web to match a
lovely gold scrap I found in my stash.
Must've looked at HUNDREDS of sites, but eventually found it at
The fabrics shown in this layout are not batiks, but
they gave me the yardage needed in each colour
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| Number of patches and yardage |
EQ6 is great - it works out fabric yardage (above) and prints
rotary-cutting patterns, templates or foundation piecing patterns.
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| Rotary-cutting diagram |
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| Templates with 1/4" seam allowance added |
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| foundation piecing template preview |
These were the final fabrics
My grandson's quilt (see Something old - something new)
has applique in it. If you're interested I'll add a post with
a few pics to show how the applique design tools work.
Would love your feedback -
it's so nice to meet people through comments!
