Let's Book It Challenge - July Update

I'm a little late getting my Let's Book It Challenge post written this month.  But at least I'm getting one written, I completely missed last month.  

So what is the Let's Book It Challenge?  It's a chance to pull out all those wonderful quilting books that sit around gathering dust and make something from them.  

I'm still working on the Poinsettia quilt from the December 2013 American Patchwork and Quilting magazine that was started earlier this year.  

I've been assembling the block sub-units as my leaders and enders project.  I added a new block to the mix this month, a set of Economy blocks.  

Poinsettias
By Judy Blok for the December 2013 issue
of American Patchwork Times and Quilting Magazine

I still have a long way to go before I'll have all the sub-units made, but progress is progress.  If I wasn't doing this via leaders and enders, there would have been no progress. So it's all good.  

To see more from the world of quilt literature, check out Vrooman's Quilts.  

Wordless Wednesday - Everythings Coming Up Daisies

Design Wall Monday - Scrappy Stitching

July certainly went fast.  We were on vacation the first week and a half of the month, which certainly has contributed to the feeling that the month just sped by.  Drama Teen will start her sophomore year of high school two weeks from tomorrow.  Mandatory volleyball practice starts this week, their first game is the first day of school.  It certainly seems like summer break gets shorter and shorter the older she gets. 

I had intended to get in two full afternoons of stitching this weekend, but Saturday afternoon turned into family nap time. After a morning of working the yard, the heat just took it out of all of us.  I did manage to get some significant stitching done on Sunday.  I got started on the red blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Sampler, but as yet haven't finished any of them.  Jigsaw has the narrow border added to three sides of the quilt, but I didn't get any pictures of it.  The yellow Inverted Star block was finished up last weekend.  So I put it up on the design wall with the others.  

 Inverted Star
by Jessica Boschem of Common Threads
available from Craftsy as a free download

I really like how these blocks are coming out.  This has been such a fun block to make. I'll miss these when the year is done.  

That's it for my design wall this week. There's more pretties posted over at Patchwork Times.  

Stash Report - Week 30 of 2014

I didn't exactly forget to post my stash report, it's just that when I remembered, I was already in the middle of something else.  So better late than never.  

I couldn't resist ordering more Moda basics during the Fat Quarter Shop sale last week.  

I ended up with red and aqua Essential Dots and a Moda Marble in dark purple.  Now, I'm putting myself on a fabric diet till the end of the year.  No new fabrics for a while.  Plus, I'm going to spend some significant time exercising my sewing machine so I can use up some more of the stash. 

Here's the damage:

Used last week:  0.67 yards
Added last week:  11 yards

Used in 2014:  10.63 yards
Added in 2014:  302.3 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  291.67 yards

This next week should look even better.  I'm still adding borders to Jigsaw and need to make the back.  Hopefully, the fabric going out will at least exceed what comes in for the week.  

I'm going to get back to exercising the sewing machine.  You can check out more stash reports over at Patchwork Times.  

Tuesday Archive - EQ Designs

Every Tuesday over at Val's Quilting Studio you have the opportunity to look back at your previous posts and bring one up to date if you like.   I'm a little late getting this post together, between getting the trash out this morning and getting Drama Teen out the door for volleyball camp, I didn't have time to get a post put together.  Hopefully I can pull this one together over lunch.  

I started using EQ in 2009 after  Microsoft's introduction of the Vista operating system made my QuiltPro program just about useless.   I wasn't very happy with EQ, it wasn't as intuitive as QuiltPro was.  It wasn't until about a year later in 2010 that I finally figured out how to use EQ to do some fundamental quilt layouts.  I had just completed all the blocks from a 2006 Buck A Block program from the quilt shop in Texas.  With the blocks done, I was looking for a way to set them.  The original post is here.  Looking back those initial layouts were pretty awful.  I was trying really hard to use all the finishing kit fabric I bought with the blocks.  I finally realized that just wasn't going to work and raided the stash for something else.  This was the working design I used to set the blocks together.

I ended up changing the final border in the finished quilt, it didn't work up on the design wall any better than it did in the EQ version. 

Texas Twilight
Buck-a-Block in a self designed layout

I was pretty happy with the final quilt, though that final photo is pretty bad.  My photography skills have definitely improved in the last 4 years.   This ended up as a Christmas gift for my sister-in-law who lives in Texas.  

I love playing in EQ.  I've designed a couple of quilts since.  Even when I'm making a project from a pattern, I'll draft the blocks in EQ, scan in some fabrics and play around till I've got the colors right.  It usually saves me from having to make a fabric change after the first block is made. 

Check out the other vintage EQ designs over at Val's Quilting Studio.