Going Happy Scrappy with EQ; Upcoming Giveaway!

Written by Diane Harris on July 16, 2020. Posted in Blog, Giveaways, How-tos and Ideas, Quilt Lifestyle

You probably know that my specialty is making scrap quilts full of color and pattern. I design many quilts from scratch but I also make other people’s designs from patterns they sell.

When I make a quilt that someone else designed, I usually scrap it up because that’s how I roll. I can’t imagine making a quilt from three fabrics or even six or seven fabrics. I want 60, 70 or 700!

I want to tell you the story of how I move from a few fabrics to a scrappy look and also why I choose to sew scrappy. I created these images in EQ8 quilt design software from The Electric Quilt Company.

For this exercise, I used a block from Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns compiled by Barbara Brackman. It’s called Squared Chain and it’s credited to Quilters Newsletter Magazine.

The block lends itself to three fabrics: one background and two colors, above.

Let’s start simple: Matching blocks set three across and four down, above. At a glance, EQ tells me that this setting will be just 27″ x 36″, which is much smaller than I have in mind. So with a couple of clicks I’ll add more blocks.

That’s a little better as far as the size. But it’s not very interesting, is it? Let’s spice up the color.

First I change up just the pinks. Already so much better.

Here’s a screenshot of my EQ when I’m ready to change up the pinks. I navigate to the group of pinks I want to use and I randomly color entire blocks at a time by using the Spraycan feature. I don’t limit it to these pinks, though. Scrappy works best if you throw in related colors like red and salmon!

I decide it’s still not scrappy enough for me, so I do the same thing with the greens. You want to branch out from the base green so that you have some avocado, grass, and so on. The more, the merrier!

I’m not entirely happy with the proportions at 5 blocks x 7 blocks, so I eliminate one row to make it 5 x 6, above. Much better!

I haven’t done anything adventuresome yet, so let’s go in a different direction. What if I set blocks on point?

Makes a huge difference, doesn’t it? It’s not that one is right and the other wrong. That’s a matter of preference. But having EQ makes it possible for me to see the options and try out all the ideas!

What about a subtle change for the outer setting triangles and a border, above? I always try dozens of things before I settle on one to either make or submit to a magazine for publication. It can be hard to narrow it down if several options are working well.

I decide I’d probably want to make this a little bigger so I do that with just a few clicks in EQ.

This is a good time to show you one thing I always do. You can export images with lines around the patches or without lines. The photo above has no lines and resembles a quilt made in solids.

Here’s the exact same quilt with lines defining the patches and the blocks. The lines help you to see how it is pieced, but they don’t help you visualize how the quilt might actually look. There’s a place for both kinds of images and I appreciate having the option in EQ.

That’s long enough for one post, but I’ll finish these thoughts in Part 2. And in two weeks, I’ll have a giveaway of EQ8 for one lucky winner! Sign up to get email notices of new posts and tell your friends!

And I have a sweet deal for you: Use code EQ8STASHBANDIT for a discount of 20% off everything on the Electric Quilt Company website: software, add-ons, books, EQ Printables (for labels, my favorite!). For EQ8 software, that will mean nearly fifty dollars off the retail price! The EQ8STASHBANDIT code is good through Sept. 30, 2020.

Quilt on!

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Tags: barbara brackman, electric quilt, electric quilt company, EQ8, giveaways, quilt design, quilters newsletter magazine