Linda Franz likes to rewrite movie scenes with witty quilting commentary. [See her blog post here and check the Inklingo Facebook page.] I tend to think of song lyrics when I am designing quilts. Probably because I am usually listening to music. Sometimes the lyrics inspire a quilt design. Or a blog post title.
I was playing around in EQ7 with some quilt blocks in a sampler-style quilt that could be made with Inklingo Collections a while back. When Linda posted to her blog, Billions of Inklingo Stars, I decided to change it up and include only blocks with stars. [Linda’s post title reminded of a line from the old Eagles song, Peaceful Easy Feeling which is where my post title comes from.] In the end, I changed direction again and used quilt blocks made with Inklingo collections that could be fussy cut.
Here’s the result. With EQ7 I could have positioned different fabrics in the blocks to give me the look of fussy cutting but opted not to. I will be fussy cutting / printing my fabrics for this quilt.
I couldn’t decide if I liked all the blocks smooshed up next to one another and added some sashing with more stars to separate the blocks. These are 18 inch blocks with 4.5 inch sashing. This design uses quite a few different Inklingo collections–Free Diamond Triangle Square [makes 4.5 inch LeMoyne Star], 6 inch LeMoyne Star, 9 inch LeMoyne Star, 9 inch Inklingo Star, 4.5 inch Castle Wall, 6 inch Castle Wall and 9 inch Castle Wall.
Then I decided to go for broke with a billion stars all around.
I like this one. It’s one of the three new projects I want to start. I have some fabric set aside for this but need to purchase fabric for the sashing strips and enough yardage of white fabric to use for the background bits in all the blocks. And I need to finish up two more projects before I can start anything new. House rules. [I did manage to get three quilt tops together in the last two weeks.]
Maybe you are a “good” quilter/crafter and only work on one or two projects at a time until you see them through to the end before you begin another. Me? Not so much. Not that I’m going to label myself a “bad” quilter or ADD because of my long, long list of quilting projects. [I do try to limit the number to no more than two dozen ongoing projects. LOL] The “thing” for me [and I haven’t come up with a name for this “thing”] is that I thoroughly enjoy the excitement of beginning a new project more so than the thrill of finishing it. Add to that my complete lack of guilt over my unfinished projects and maybe you can see why I’m up to 22 projects.
The “thing” is, I am contemplating three new projects and that would put me over my limit. [Using up stash creates more room for long-standing project storage, right?] A true dilemma. I decided I needed to finish up four long-standing quilts that are in various states of doneness and a carry-on bag that would count as project number five. So if I subtract the finished projects and then add in the three new projects, I’m below my previous number of ongoing projects. [Works for me!] Two of those long-standing quilts bring me to the topic of this post…
You know how when you get back to a UFO long-standing project that’s been languishing in a bag at the bottom of a pile clear plastic project container in a closet in your sewing room, there’s always that surprising moment when you remember exactly WHY this project became a UFO? I hate those moments.
This is an EQ rendition of the scrappy plaid quilt that I started who knows when. When I dragged this project out of the armoire where my UFOs long-standing projects [LSPs?] are stored, I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t finished sewing the quilt top together. [In case you are wondering, I’m resisting using “UFOs” because of the comment spam I get about UFOs—the kind spotted in the night sky—whenever I post something about unfinished projects. I think because I live so close to Area 51, I get double the spam. And I’m sure I just upped the ante with the Area 51 mention…] I pulled out nine completed strips from the project bag—six folded together and the remaining three folded together. This fact didn’t jog anything in my conscious memory. It should have.
I spent part of the day listening to a Harry Potter audiobook while unsewing and resewing part of this project. That jogged a vague memory of the last time I worked on this quilt. I was housesitting for a couple that likes to go to Mardi Gras every year. Another quilter, but her design wall wasn’t big enough to pin up the strips. I started sewing the strips together anyway and noticed something was off so I laid them all out on a bed and discovered my errors. At the time, I unsewed the strips I had sewn together but didn’t want to take the time to fix the three bad strips I discovered. I carefully folded everything up—six strips in one pile and the three bad strips in another—with no note as to why I was folding the strips in that way—potentially compounding my erroneous ways.
My subconscious memory was looking out for me though. This time I decided to put the strips up on the design wall even though it’s currently covered with the homeowner’s four ongoing projects. That was when I discovered rediscovered there was an issue with three of the strips. Now the strips are resewn and waiting to be ironed. I can put this top together and add it to the “to be quilted” pile. One project down, four more to go.
When Linda Franz posted a photo of the Morse Star on the Inklingo Facebook page, I commented that I would like to see the second row of partial stars radiate out to make the block large enough to be a baby quilt. The trick to making radiating rows is to add the unit I’ve colored in purple as shown below.
When drawing a complex block in Electric Quilt, it is simpler to draw just a quarter of the block. When placed into a quilt design, there will be what looks like a seam running vertically and horizontally through the center of the quilt splitting some of the quilt pieces in half. Obviously you would use the full piece instead of halves when creating the quilt.
Shall we call the 36 inch block Endeavor?
My idea for the baby quilt.
This 36 inch block makes a fabulous center for a medallion-style quilt. A 72 inch quilt using the Inklingo Star, Castle Wall, and Free Diamond-Triangle-Square Collections.
 9 inch Inklingo Star |
 9 inch Castle Wall |
 Free Diamond-Triangle-Square |
I couldn’t decide if I like the interplay between light, medium and dark better in this one or the one above. Either way, I would be doing some major fussy cutting for the diamonds, kites and Castle Wall centers so I suppose it wouldn’t matter. I made a slideshow gallery to show you some of the other designs I was playing around with in Electric Quilt.
- 1 Year of Stitches embroidery project
- Hexiflowers (aka Grace's Garden)
- Death Star pillow
- Tonopah Nevada topographical map
- 1855 Wales Center map
- Winnie the Pooh map
- Ethan's Quilt
- Thea's Quilt
- Rachelle Fae CQ block
- Machine quilting with a walking foot
Judy Martin's
Waltzing Matilda
6, 9 & 12 inch blocks
The traditional size: 1 inch Patchwork of the Crosses
FREE Idea Book
