Friday, April 29, 2011

quilt designing second post

All of these images came from my limited knowledge of Electric Quilt 6. Click on any image to see a larger image. I choose a 4 patch block 8-inches square. There is method to this madness. I want to use up some more of the gingham blocks Mother had made and the next group is pink.

In this quilt design I decided to use the 4 patch in every other space and use a light pink fabric in the plain 8-inch square. The dimensions for the finished top are 64" by 88". Which is real close to the chart in All-in-one Quilter's Reference Tool book for a twin with a 12" drop. It's okay but what can we do with it.



Well no. 2 is a 4 patch for every block. Ah, no thank-you! Next!



No. 3 is a little easier on the eyes. What I did was rotate ever other block, but still not what I'm looking for.



No.4 back to every other block and added a 4-inch border. Nicer I could live with this. Wonder what sashing between the blocks would look like?



No. 5 no border, a 4 patch block in every square with 1-inch sashing and cornerstones. This is way better than No. 2. I think it could be improved upon though.



No. 6 same thing with a 5'' borders on the sides and 3.5'" borders top and bottom. Once again improvement but it still doesn't float my boat.



No. 7 added a second border sides 4" top and bottom 2.5". I could probably live with this. What else can we come up with?



No. 8 is a definite, wonder what that would look like. The 4 patch blocks and 1" border are the same size as the top of a twin mattress. The orchid border is the 12-inch drop. I would have to see this laid out on a bed before I could give it a yeah or nay.



Okay let's look at these blocks on point. No. 9 doesn't hurt my eyes, could be livable but it doesn't make me want to make it, as well as it is too small at 56.5 by 79.2-inches.



No. 10 has a border with 3.25" sides and the top and bottom at 4". The contrasting solid blocks also help a lot.



No. 11 this is what happens when you add green sashings and black cornerstones with 4 patch blocks to each blank square. More visual interest. I started to get excited here, this one is do-able for me. Would a border improve it?



No.12 this border is entirely too wide. It is not a multiple of the block. The multiples of 8 are 1,2,4,and 8. Borders and sashings that don't fall into multiples of a block tend to jar the senses.



This leads us to No. 13. I added 2 more borders to break up the one large one. The inside border of black is 1"; the middle border is 2". The outside border is actually 3" it looks pretty good to me so I would have to audition the last border before I cut and sewed it on. I would fold a piece 3" wide lay it against the quilt top and then a 4" piece to see what I liked best. I also figured out how to get the miter feature to work in EQ6. Yeah!



This is how I design a quilt. Lots of trying different lay-outs until I come up with one that I would like to put together. I'm sure there are easier ways to do design, I just don't know of them.

I like the last one the best so in the next post I will show you how to figure block sizes and how much fabric I'll need. Add then how to pick fabrics to complement the gingham I am working with.

Have a good day!

Judy

P.S. It may take me a few days to get back to the computer. The ground looks like it has dried up enough for me to get some gardening done. Judy

4 comments:

Leigh said...

What fun and how interesting to see the progression of ideas. I haven't made a quilt in eons, and to think I had to figure things out without the aid of a computer! What a handy gadget that is.

Judy said...

It really is Leigh, if for me, I go into the program with no preconceived ideas of what I want the quilt to look like. But if I know what I want, I use graph paper and a pencil. I think before I get to far into making this quilt I will show everybody how I design on paper. After all, how many people starting out quilting have a program? I would bet the answer is none!

Thanks for stopping by!

Handmade Crafts Done While RVing Blog said...

Cool now if the program could sew it up for me lol... Nah got my quiting husband to do that... Awesome program!! My husband uses graff paper..

Evielynne

Judy said...

Yup, i like graph paper! Stay tuned I am going to explore my process with it and the 'design bed'. LOL

Thanks for stopping by!