A Prairie Home Quilts

While working with EQ7 to create some Inklingo-able quilt designs for Linda’s Love the Lines contest, I discovered how easy (and fun!) it is to draw applique shapes in EQ.  My first submission for the contest was a final version of the blue Feathered Star quilt idea I had had several months ago.

The Color of the Sky. I’m Told

 This design went through 5 different revisions and then several versions of each revision.  The Feathered Stars started out in a horizontal setting with an idea of adding applique in the borders and alternate blocks — something with a Celtic feel or maybe something with the San Kamon collection.  Somewhere along the revision process I had the idea that the appliques should be constellations, more Feathered Star blocks were added to the quilt and they got set on point.  I decided upon the zodiac constellations with their corresponding symbols when I wondered how people would be able to tell which constellations were what.  There’s a long, convoluted, serendipitous thingy with the name of the quilt, fabric choices, zodiac constellation idea, number of Feathered Star blocks, etc., etc. going on with this quilt that maybe I’ll explain in a post of its own some day…  This is also a real work-in-progress.  I have started stitching the Feathered Stars and border blocks which use the free Inklingo Diamond/Square/Triangle collection.

After I drew the appliques, I started to play with them in other quilt designs.  This is where the Mariner’s Compass blocks came into play.

I liked the larger constellation applique blocks with the Mariner’s Compass but I was willing to let that idea sit because there isn’t an Inklingo Mariner’s Compass collection yet and I don’t like messing with paper pieced designs.  [Besides, I'm still without a sewing machine so everything has to be done by hand.]

In the meantime, there was this antique book cover that was inspiring some applique ideas of its own.

I didn’t like the fish in the center as an applique motif so I wasn’t motivated to go anywhere with this design, yet…  Over the weekend I thought of using a Mariner’s Compass as a center medallion to replace the fish so I started working up some ideas in EQ7.

Ignore the color scheme and note that the anchor appliques aren’t quite finished yet.  I want to use bias strips in the circular design that connects the anchors and put appliqued circles in 2 sizes on the first thin border like the book cover.  I’ll modify the leave appliques a bit to be more like the book cover also; and instead of the circle motif in that border, I’d like to do a shell applique similar to the design on the spine.  Still lots to do to finish this quilt design.

Further playing with the Mariner’s Compass block as a medallion resulted in this.

Another EQ7 work in progress.  It’s not completely Inklingo-able as drawn with the size of center block that I used.  This is just a quick rendition to get the design idea down.  I’ll finish it up to make it work with maybe a 15 inch center medallion and one of the available Storm at Sea collections.  The final border coloring is an idea from Wenche using the Yin Yang collection.  Wenche used the collection as a border for an applique quilt she designed to look like waves.  Christiane Wipplinger used the collection in the same way [to create the look of waves] in her Love the Lines contest entry shown here.

I asked Linda about a Mariner’s Compass block and she asked if summer or early fall would be soon enough.  Yes, it would — any time is fine actually but I’m wondering how many more Mariner’s Compass ideas I’ll have done in EQ by then?

So, where have you been, I hear you all asking?  [Imagining to myself there’s at least one someone out there still listening after all this time… ] Welp, doing some house sitting, of course, and on a spiritual journey of sorts.  Yes, again.  Involving dragons again, too.  But, you know, I came away with a deeper understanding of the Hymn of the Soul and the meaning of the pearl.  Oh and the great Hydra was involved.  It was worth every minute of the journey.  Hehehe.  I will spare you the details of my spiritual epiphanies, though.  Really.  I’m sure you are more interested in the quilting I’ve been doing.  Wait, how could I forget?  There was a magical wedding and children visiting from far away lands happening in the middle of all this, too!

And I should probably fess up that I’ve been doing some writing also.  November is National Novel Writing Month, did you know that?  According to the Office of Light and Letters it is.  [Love their slogan:  We believe in ambitious acts of the imagination.]  The challenge is to write 50K words in 30 days.  I spent part of October preparing to write and I’ve written every day in November [obviously nothing for the blog!].  I’m at just under 39K as of this morning and hoping to hit 40K by tonight.  No one but me will ever read the thing, but it’s been another fun part of the journey to slay the great Hydra and let my imagination soar.

Okay, okay, on with the quilting…

I’ve been working on my .75″ hexagon project, Field of Flowers.  It was stalled.  I didn’t have all the flowers prepped.  I decided to go ahead and do that with Inklingo.  I can’t remember now how many flowers I needed but I printed and cut enough sets of flowers and centers to have 512 flowers when they’re all stitched. [I need 502.]  Then I went ahead and printed the corners and edges in the green fabric I’d purchased eons ago.

I started this project working from the middle out and then decided it would be so much easier to start from a corner as I was always getting the middle portion twisted around.  I have more than half the flowers done.  I feel like I’m making a huge dent in this project.

New starting point — bottom, left corner

Some finished flowers.

The box with the remaining flower sets.

And more of the wedding, just because…

Oldest daughter, Jessica with groom’s younger brother

Youngest daughter, Rachelle with groom’s older brother

Michelle and Jared McCarty

Daughters again…

Oldest son, Nathan and his lovely wife, Koren.

When I ordered Christmas fabric online to make a tree skirt, I had to order 1/2 yard of each of the fabrics I planned to use.  I had about 1/4 yard of each left after I cut out the tree skirt. The stripe caught my eye as a great fabric to fussy cut using the Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses [POTC] collection. The main shape in the collection is an elongated hexagon. When you fussy cut using a striped fabric, it’s easier to get a kaleidoscopic effect. Here are the 3 blocks I was able to create with the leftover fabric.

Instead of printing onto the back of the fabric like you would normally do with Inklingo, I printed the hexagon and square shapes onto freezer paper and cut them out.  Then I ironed the freezer paper to the front of the fabric to make it easier to fussy cut each shape exactly the same.

I needed 2 sets of 4 and 1 set of 8 matching hexagons for each block.  Also some squares were needed for the corners and connectors.  I wasn’t as excited about the kaleidoscope effect the squares made and some of the hexagons that I cut.  I discovered the in order to get the best effect, the hexagons should be cut perpendicular to the stripe and the squares need to be cut on the diagonal.  [But I didn't discover that until I started sewing the shapes together and by then I was out of fabric.]

Pretend that the stripe runs horizontally all the way across the fabric here…  This is how to orient the hexagons — at least for the center and next row of the block.  You can see in the second and third blocks that the last row of 8 hexagons also looks okay with the stripe running through the length of the hexagon.  In that instance, iron on the freezer paper with the hexagon points going horizontally instead of vertically.

The squares look best when you iron the freezer paper on to fussy cut them this way…  Once again, imagine that the stripe runs horizontally all the way across the fabric.  [This was the only fabric I could lay my hands on this afternoon that had any sort of stripe to show what I'm trying to explain.]

After the blocks were done, the design dilemma monster reared its head.  What to use for the border around each block?? The red and green in the Christmas fabric was hard to match.  For the tree skirt I ended up with some Fairy Frost Glitz fabric.

Uhm, no. This is just way more sparkle and glitz than I want to use here.  I did like the gold border framing the block though.

Much better.  I purchased some regular Fairy Frost in a gold and black when I was first trying to match the green and red so I used them.  It’ll be a table runner.  It measures approximately 11″ x 31″.

Not totally jazzed with the square sections all being different and wondering how this might look as a table topper, I played around in Paint Shop Pro.  I’m thinking I need to order a bit more of this fabric. The fabric is Holiday Flourish III Elegant Stripe Crimson by Peggy Toole.

The edges might look better in black only although I do like the design effect in 3 of the corners.  The center squares might be nicer surrounded by black much the way the original POTC looks.  More playing with Paint Shop Pro ensued.  Oh, and imagine that each block looks different here… [teehee]

A project for next year maybe…

Okay, I still need 40 Flying Geese units. Using Inklingo to make flying geese units is also very easy. This technique makes 4 Flying Geese units from one large square and 4 small squares.  Using Inklingo I have printed my HST on the red fabric — 4 sets of 2 HST are needed.  Figure the size of the large square by multiplying the size of the HST by 2 and adding 1.25″.

Step One: Place 2 sets of HST on opposite corners of the large square, right sides together.

Close up of HST with stitching and cutting lines printed with Inklingo.

Step Two: Sew on dotted diagonal lines.

Step Three: Cut apart on solid center line and finger press seam open.

Step Four: Line up remaining HST in corners, RST and sew on dotted diagonal lines.  Cut apart on solid center line.

Step Five: Trim dog ears and press.

Two hundred sixty-two half square triangles and forty flying geese units? No problemo.  It’s easy with Inklingo. Let’s start with the HST shall we?

Step One: Iron freezer paper to right side of lightest colored fabric.

Step Two: Print triangle shapes onto the wrong side of fabric in a contrasting color.  I used a bit darker red than I would normally so it would show a little better in the photos.

Close-up of printed HST

Step Three: Layer printed fabric with a second fabric, right sides together.

Step Four: Sew on all the DIAGONAL DOTTED lines.

Step Five: Rotary or scissor cut all the SOLID lines — including the dog-ears.

Step Six: Press.

Voila! Perfect HST without papers to remove and even better — NO SQUARING UP NEEDED.

If you’re like me, you have a project or two with a half a million HSTs to square up and you got bored with the job and stalled.  So now the project is hiding in the closet. I know your secrets! [I've got a few of those myself. . .]  Next up, that gaggle of flying geese!

I didn’t do this week’s Inklingo Sampler block and chose instead to do the bonus block that is posted twice a month.  I have Inklingo Collection #3 which is what is needed for the 6 pointed Star Hexagon.

Because I wanted this block to play nice with my others, I added the bits around the Star Hexagon so the block would measure 6″ square when finished.

These are the fabric bits for my first challenge block that I’m adding to my Inklingo Sampler Quilt.

I chose to make an Aunt Sukey’s Choice block because it had flying geese units and I wanted to try them with Inklingo. I used the instructions that Linda provides in her Triangle Tips PDF to make 8 flying geese units.  Yeah, I know I sound like a walking ad [or broken record] for Inklingo but I really do love using it.

This is the block laid out for sewing after the flying geese units are made.

Next I made the 4 patches and sewed the flying geese units together.  [Man, are my photos blurry.]

The finished block.  [It looks a little wonky.  I need to do a better job with my photos or my pressing.]

I did make myself a little crazy unsewing a seam or two several times trying to be sure my seams lined up.  I seriously won’t be doing that any more if I want to get a good number of challenge blocks completed for my quilt.  I realized I’ve been spoiled by the precise seams I can get when I’m hand piecing.  I’ve never been able to sew by machine and get precise seams which I’m attributing to the way I pin because I’m a leftie.  [Any excuse will do, right?]