This series will help to expand your color skills so you can make more beautiful, more interesting and more successful quilts.
A color-savvy quilter knows that she must expand her definition of what any particular color looks like.
Fire engine red
I’m partnering with The Electric Quilt Company to promote EQ8 design software for a couple of months, and to that end, I shot a video showing two different ways to color a design in EQ8.
If you’re unfamiliar with the software, just sit back and enjoy the view and don’t worry about feeling a little lost. When you actually have the software, you start from the very beginning and learn one small step at a time. Everything builds on something you already know!
Here, we are jumping right into the meat of things and it may feel like drinking from a fire hose! Rest assured that there’s plenty of free help to launch you into coloring, designing and playing with EQ8.
To get started, use code EQ8STASHBANDIT for 20% off everything at electricquilt.com. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
In just a few more days, I’m excited to be part of Quilt Block Mania, where 30 designers will have original block designs posted on their websites at no charge. Each block uses a similar color palette and has a Halloween theme. There are some incredibly adorable designs!
My block will go into one of those spaces.
Each week, I’m going to release another companion block so that before long, you’ll have a whole set of them! And I designed it so that the other blocks in #quiltblockmania will fit in the spaces where you currently see the Log Cabin Pumpkins (a pattern which I’m also going to release).
So you’ll have lots of options and enough free quilt block patterns to keep you busy until Christmas!
One of the things I love about EQ8 quilt design software is that it can help me “scratch an itch.” When there’s a quilt I adore but know that I probably won’t ever make, I can create it virtually with EQ!
Every month on the EQ blog, there’s a feature called Block Spotlight. People are encouraged to design something with a featured block. EQ editors give a few ideas to prime your creative pump and it’s like calisthenics for your creative muscles.
I was happy to see that the August Block Spotlight is Prickly Pickle. It’s from the block library within the software—one of thousands you can use to design your own quilts—and I can’t wait to see how people use it.
A bell went off in my head when I saw the block, because just that week I had seen the photo above and fell in love with the colors in that quilt. The old, softly muted reds, blues, pinks and creams against the faded gold are heavenly.
There is one problem: I don’t know where I grabbed these photos so I can’t properly credit the owner. If they are yours, please let me know.
Since I love that vintage quilt so much, I colored my Block Spotlight in a similar way. And that was really scratching an itch for me!
I adore this quilt but I won’t ever make it. So coloring it and making as many virtual blocks as I wanted to were a wonderful substitute.
When I play with a quilt design, I use the solid colors available in EQ instead of the fabric swatches.
At this point in the process, I’m not thinking about fabric as much as I’m considering the big picture of the color recipe and the values (lightness or darkness).
I will say that I do know my fabric stash well enough to be certain that I could find these in it. I would have to buy the gold fabric, but with virtual, that’s not a problem! See the advantages?? 😊
I love to color things randomly. There are some parameters (a set of colors) but they are loose and the whole thing can flow freely.
It was as much fun to color it in EQ8 as it would be to sew it—maybe more!
And this is what I love about scrappy vintage quilts! They are the most carefree, exuberant and entertaining quilts around.
What I wouldn’t give for the time to sew this! Would you ever get tired of looking at it? Seems there would always be something new to discover! And to demonstrate that the gold is the bomb, look at what happens with a neutral background.
I think it dies. The colors and randomness are still interesting but they don’t hold up the way the gold background does. But you know what?
And that’s the beauty of the quilting world: You are in charge of what you like and what you don’t. If you like it, you can do it!
I wondered about an indigo background. With EQ it’s just a click or two to check it out.
I tried several different blues because blue is funny and I think it’s a hard color in a scrap quilt. (Red is the easiest!)
I saw a wonderful quilt by Sandi Griepenstroh at guild last week in navy and lime green. So I tried something in those colors. (This is why you should be snapping photos during your guild meetings! Color inspiration from here to kingdom come!) Then I had another idea.
Above, the petal shapes are mostly filled in with color. I wondered what would happen if…
I made the insides of the petal shapes the same color as the background. Voila! Totally different look. Now it’s as if you’re peering through curved window panes.
And because I got so excited about this block, before I left it behind, I softened the colors into something I might actually sew, with a more reasonable number of blocks.
Because you never know.
To get started with EQ8 from The Electric Quilt Company, use code EQ8STASHBANDIT for 20% off everything on electricquilt.com. That’s a nice savings! Ends Sept. 30, 2020.
To see what others designed with the same block, visit Block Spotlight! And if you’re an EQ user, jump right in to the fun and design something yourself. If you’re not a user but you want to be, use the code above to get started.
I finished a hawg this week. That’s my new term for a quilt you love and hate as you make it.
It wasn’t the quilt’s fault. I think it was a difficult project because of the bias edges on hundreds of small pieces and on a bunch of big pieces, too.
A while back I wrote about some quilts that were in trouble with me for a post called “Quilts in the Doghouse.” I just finished piecing another top, a recent UFO (which means I started it in the past year or so), and near the end of the process, I had what you might call a full-on hissy fit.
First I want to say that Hexie Framed is a great design and a well-written pattern from Emily Dennis of Quilty Love. None of this story is the pattern’s or the designer’s fault. This is all on me.
Another recent finish is my Bitty Blocks row quilt. I started this years ago when I was working as an editor for Quiltmaker. We had this idea to create 3″ and 4″ blocks and post them for free on our website. There was no such thing as a marketing team so we had to market ourselves, and this was one of the ways we did it.
The thing about Bitty Blocks is that they’re addictive. You make a few, and then you make a few more, and you’re having so much fun that pretty soon you have 50 little 4″ stars or 70 tiny houses at 3″ x 3″, and then what?
Hey quilters, how are you holding up? I know. Me, too. Things are starting to open up here in Nebraska, and I wonder if my friends would want to head out to a quilt store this week. I am ready!
I have sewn like a crazy woman during the pandemic. I’ve finished up some things, started a bunch of new things, and practiced machine quilting a LOT.
In December I dug out and shot all the UFOs I could find, including these little baskets.
Yesterday, online learning platform Bluprint, formerly Craftsy, sent an email to instructors saying the company would be closing over the next few months. This was at once surprising and completely unsurprising.
When Craftsy began about 10 years ago (because a guy received a quilt from his aunt), the quilters I knew loved it. It provided something new in the form of online learning, and it was well done. You could interact with the instructors, get answers to your questions, post your progress and make friends with others in your classes. It was amazing.
I’ve been machine quilting much more than usual during this extended time at home. I’m learning a lot. I am so happy to have finished My Wild Garden recently.
It’s an improvisational quilt, which is a fancy way of saying I made it up as I went along. You’ve never had so much fun as improv quilting allows.
I’m not going to talk about the pandemic. We’re all frustrated. So…
I’ve been finishing up some things the past few weeks. I have a lot of UFOs squirreled away in closets and cupboards and it would feel great to be done with them. And, BONUS, some of them can go into trunk shows! I have extra time because my engagements with guilds have been cancelled for April, May and June.
Two quilts I finished this week gave me pause. One was My Christmas Album, above. It’s a great design by Tina Curran with fusible applique and a border of Christmas sweaters. But when I took the final stitch, I didn’t feel anything good. I felt all manner of royally ticked off.