It has been a very long day. I’m teaching a 7 month long class on EQ8 and this morning was on the Applique portion of the program. There wasn’t enough time, so I promised to make videos on what we couldn’t cover. This afternoon I taught a class on Studio 180’s Star 60 tool and covered 3 technique sheets. When I got home there was a questions on FB about EQ8 and I made a short video to cover that. I’m putting the videos here, because I can!
Bed is calling, I get to repeat the EQ8 class tomorrow morning at 8am and then have another class to teach at 10:15.
I just can’t help myself, I love a challenge. Today’s challenge was to create a Sunburst Pantograph in Intelliquilter. I came up with two ways, but only created a video of one.
If you prefer not to make your own pattern you can download the ones made in this video here and here.
Again with the disclaimer, I haven’t physically stitched out these designs.
There was a question on Friends Using IQ on Facebook, asking whether this design could be made on the Intelliquilter. The short answer is yes, but the long answer on how I did it is in the video.
Don’t want to make it yourself? You can download the one I made here.
Disclaimer – I have not done a physical test stitch out of this design.
As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been playing along with the American Patchwork and Quilting UFO Challenge. The number for this quilt was drawn in February, and 14 years after making the top, and after two weeks of intense quilting it is finished!!! If you want to read about the process on the top you can here, here and here. I may have gone overboard on pictures, but this is more about the quilting. I’m including the pictures of the commercial patterns I used in the quilt, none of them whole. The rest of the patterns I created myself using my IntelliQuilter. There were some lessons learned, and I would approach some of it differently were I to do it again.
I know there are already videos discussing how to realign IQ. However, someone in our local IQ user group was having issues and since I’m not there to see what is happening I just made a video of how I realign when stitching out a pantograph design.
When I set up a pantograph, I set up the whole stitching sequence at the very beginning. So things would be a little different if one were to set up just a row at a time.
Technically this was NOT my UFO. Nolan saw the Abstract theme fabric when we were in Oregon. He was around 11 (He’s 26 now). He haaaaaad to have that fabric. He promised if I would buy it for him he would make the quilt! With supervision he did use the rotary cutter and then sewed one block and some of the units for other blocks. After that everything ended up in my collection for about 15 years. Finally because I’m trying to clean out and clean up, I pulled it out and finished it. I actually finished the binding within 5 minutes of the binding of Snowmen A to Zzzz. I couldn’t decide which to finish first and Jesse suggested I do both at the same time. So I alternated between them one needle of thread then switch to the other. I know, I do strange things to entertain myself. Now that the quilt is finished, Nolan is taking credit for the great job he did.
I finished Stargazing the beginning of August. I started it in December of 2018, and completed the blocks fairly quickly. It was a sample for Ruth’s Stitchery, so some of the blocks hung for a portion of 2019. Once I got them back, the quilt went together last fall.
I offered to make this quilt, because I loved the quilting in the sashing on the pattern. I finally had a chance to start quilting it in April and expected to finish in May. However, life went sideways in May. I ended up taking it off the machine to work on a customer quilt. It went back on the machine in July and I finally finished quilting it. This quilt and the customer one I did in between have convinced, my once again, to stop doing custom quilting for hire. The quilting alone took close to 80 hours.
Other than some stitch in the ditch and the X’s on the individual colored squares in the sashing everything was done with the Intelliquilter.
I have dropped it off at Ruth’s Stitchery, and I think it is hanging there now. They are making more kits for this quilt.
Another month and the local IQ user group won’t be able to meet again. I’m toying with some subjects to record, but in the mean time, I did a presentation last year on building a large group of quilting designs from just one P2P triangle. I actually digitized a design in Art & Stitch to give to everyone in the group. If you would like to download the pattern in IQP format click here. I have done a test stitch out of a couple combinations — Note the center swirl is meant to be offset slightly, it isn’t a mistake.
I recorded about a 40 minute video showing how to create different combinations using this design in the IQ, but remember any P2P triangle can be used to create loads of designs. In addition there are multiple ways to do things in the IQ, so don’t be limited by how I did it.
The stay at home orders have made the days merge one into another. I keep track of Friday so I am ready for Sabbath. Other than that, it doesn’t seem to matter right now. I finished stitching the binding on this quilt sometime this week.
The quilt top was constructed in 2014, and if you looked at all the quilts I’ve made, this one doesn’t really fit. I tend to avoid doing the same thing over and over again and I rarely use precuts.
This quilt came about because the store where I worked had purchased more Jelly Roll packs (the fabric in the blocks) than were selling. So we were looking around for a pattern that would work well for them. This quilt was in an Alex Anderson book (sorry I don’t remember which one), but it didn’t use Jelly Rolls. The half square triangles were made using pieces larger than 2-1/2″, however the finished units in the block were 2″. So I was able to adapt the pattern for the 2-1/2″ strips by using the Easy Angle ruler. I had issues with the triangles in the borders and would do it differently now. The top was finished, but i didn’t have time to quilt it right away. So the top was hung (high at my request) and the Jelly Rolls and book sold. Samples sell!
I usually try to keep my quilts looking new as long as possible, but to try to camouflage the issues in this one, I wanted an antique look. The Baptist fan arcs are about 1/2″ apart. Once the quilt was bound, I washed and dried it. It feels really nice and I’m much happier with it now.
Because I didn’t post anything else this week, I did a video of how to draft this block in Electric Quilt. The video also covers how to get a block from the block library and recolor it. As well as basic quilt layout in the program.
I did a second video showing how I created and set up the Baptist Fan pattern on the Intelliquilter.
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