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.  

Design Wall Monday - Bordering Jigsaw

I'm so not ready for Monday morning.  My Guy is headed back to Texas for the week and Drama Teen has to get going early for volleyball camp.  That's more rushing around than I'm used to on a summer morning.  It's amazing how much less chaos there is when DT doesn't have to up for school.  

It was a nice weekend.  A bit of housework got done and the towers of laundry were reduced to small lumps.  Even with all that there was still some time to spend in the sewing room.  Though it wasn't all stitching.  A bit of straightening up was needed, plus a bit of rearranging to do a better job of organizing my scraps. 

Drama Teen and I played around with border options for the Jigsaw quilt.  Our original plan to have a 1" lime green border before adding the dark blue border just didn't work.  We tried a few other bright colors and realized that what was needed was to put the dark blue first, then add a narrow bright border before adding a final border of more dark blue.  The first 4 border strips are cut, sewn and trimmed to size, only the 2 vertical borders managed to get sewn on.  

Jigsaw
pattern by Alyssa Clancy for Lehmann Quilting

Drama Teen is thrilled with it thus far and is ready to have it on her bed.  Hopefully I can get the borders on and a back made before the end of July so it can go off for quilting.  

That's it for my design wall this week.  You can see more eye candy over at Judy's Patchwork Times. 

Stash Report - Week 29 of 2014

It was  gloriously cool in northern Oklahoma this last week.  It's rare that I come home from work in July and put on sweats, normally I'm looking for the coolest pair of shorts I can find.  It rained all day Thursday with the highs barely making it into the 70s.  

Everything is lush and green, when it's usually starting to turn brown about now.  

The Black-eyed Susans are still going strong.  It's supposed to warm up to just shy of 100 F by mid week, but then is should cool down to the low 90s.  It doesn't get much better in Oklahoma this time of year. 

My stash report's not quite as favorable as the weather.  I took advantage of the Fat Quarter Shop's 25% off all Moda fabrics to stock up larger cuts of the Moda Marbles and some of the white Moda Muslin. 

It seems you can never have too much white or black for backgrounds.  I also added in some yellow, red and teal since those are colors I don't have much of.  

Needless to say, my stash report looks pretty lopsided.  I finished up the blocks for the Jigsaw quilt, so there is a bit going out.

Used last week:  0.35 yards
Added last week:  25 yards

Used in 2014:  9.96 yards
Added in 2014:  291.3 yards

Net stashed in 2014:  281.34 yards

This next week should look better as I hope to get the borders on the Jigsaw quilt and piece a back.  It would be nice to see a bit more going out.  However, I've been looking at recent additions of tone on tone fabrics as my "retirement" fabric account. It's hard to resist a good sale, especially with the cost of fabric today.  

Check out all the other stash reports over at Patchwork Times.  

2nd Annual Piggy Bank Challenge - A Late Entry

I've been a bit lax on joining challenges this year.  But there's one sponsored by Val's Quilting Studio that seems to be an easy commitment.  

All I have to do is collect my spare change for the year.  That's relatively easy.  I put my change collector in the laundry room.  That way it's handy to use for any change that gets left in the wash, plus I'm the only one that goes in there, so hopefully that will limit any plundering by the rest of the family.  Here's what I'm using:

I found this in the cabinet over the refrigerator.  It looks to be a good size.  Hopefully it will hold enough to buy a new iron.   My last two irons have been emergency purchases at Walmart.  My last "nice" iron burned up in the middle of a project and I just ran out to get something that would work.  The one I have now still heats up, but it can't deliver steam or a spray of water anymore.  I don't use those features for pressing blocks, but they sure are nice when I'm pressing washed fabric.   

If you want to play along check out this post over at Val's Quilting Studio.  

Wordless Wednesday - Dogbane Days of Summer