Fellow Quilters,
Good Sunday Morning! If you’ve been following along with the Time to Quilt quilt-along and read right to the end of yesterday’s post you know there is a prize up for grabs if you post a comment about the quilts shown in yesterday’s post. Silly me – I forgot to include a deadline – so the deadline to leave a comment to be eligible for the prize is Tuesday May 5th at 11:59pm EST. Thank you for all your comments so far, and for the lovely emails that I have also received.
I’ve got a few more quilt ideas for you to consider today, as I alluded in yesterday’s post. I played around with my 12” super-size Shimmer blocks and came up with some ideas that could also work with the 9” blocks. Let’s take a look. My original Shimmer quilt with the 4 color palettes I selected was rather colorful.
My original design idea for my 12″ Shimmer blocks
Partway through the quilt-along I decided to replace some of the color in the blocks with black and my resulting quilt looked like this.
My revised design with black in some of the blocks
I liked it much better – I found that the black calmed it down. I had an email conversation with one of my fellow BMQG members who was following along and making the 12” blocks – we discussed different layout options. I mentioned that this version is rather large – 94” x 118” – and I might consider removing a row of blocks to bring the quilt down to 94” x 107” and use the extra row of blocks in a bed runner. I still wasn’t entirely happy with my color choices for this quilt, so was also considering taking out the coral blocks and using them for another smaller quilt. So I opened up EQ and started playing. By selecting only the blue/green/purple blocks and placing the blocks on-point I came up with this arrangement and a size of 94” x 113”.
My blue, green and purple blocks arranged in an on-point setting
Now I like this quilt! Okay, let’s play with the coral blocks. I recolored 2 pairs of blocks to remove some green and purple and placed the blocks on-point with an alternate block. Here’s what I got.
My coral blocks set on-point with an alternate chain block
How cool is that? With a 4” border this quilt is 63” x 80”, a nice throw size. Now, in EQ it’s very easy to make adjustments to quilts simply by clicking a button, so I wondered what size this layout would be if I used the 9” blocks instead. Here’s what my quilt image looked like.
I reduced the block size to 9″ but didn’t change the border width – surprise!
My work-around in EQ to get full squares instead of half-squares for those outer ½-blocks was to add a narrow border with triangles to make the other half of the square (you can see that inner border on the blue-green-purple version). When I reduced the block size it reduced the length of those border blocks but not the height of them so the triangles became pointier.
The original border block (using cream instead of black) and the shortened block
Look at those outer large “squares” in the alternate blocks – they’re now arrowheads! Haha! An accidental design choice – I like it! Have you made any accidental design choices? Maybe ran out of one fabric and your substitute created a surprising but happy result in your quilt?
I think the few downpours of rain yesterday impacted the mixologist’s choice of cocktail – we had Hurricanes, not necessarily the cocktail of choice for a cruise, however they were quite tasty.
Hurricanes were on the menu yesterday
My friend Daphne has posted some notes on her blog about what she plans to do with her Tapa Cloth blocks, Apparently she has recruited her resident mixologist as well 🙂
I’m off to get a pattern written today. I have 1 more post relating to the quilt-along that I want to do, with a great tip for assembling your quilt. If my pattern-writing goes well, I’ll blog again tomorrow, otherwise it’ll be Tuesday.
Cheers,
Patti
pattispatchwork-blog.com 
It’s spectacular. I’m going to play with my EQ7 as soon as I get my batik blocks done. Thank you Patti!
You’ll love it Judy, and EQ8 is more intuitive.
The blue, purple, green, black layout is my fav!
Thanks for your feedback!
Love your on point blue and green top! I have 25 blocks from a swap that I had played around with in EQ and came up with a similar layout. I wasn’t sure if I would like cornerstones but I love yours! I think will play with it some !it’s now! Thanks for the inse!
Thanks Sandy
I liked the original quilt the best. Even though all the squares are different patterns and colors this one is the same hues. When the black squares were added all I see is the black squares.
Thanks for your feedback Diane
What is EQ ?? Beautiful quilts ,,,
Thanks Adeline. Electric Quilt is quilt designing computer software. It’s quite easy to use.
Hi Patti,
Your blogs on colour choices, placement and sizes is so much fun.
How much is EQ8? Can you find it used? What do you need in order to use it?
Thanks,
Lynette
I especially liked the blue, purple, green and black layout. More dramatic and focused. Carole
Carole, thanks for your feedback.