Electric Quilt – Page 2 – Kelly's Kwilts

Design Wall Monday – December 2

Well I’ve been very busy working on the applique blocks this last week. Finished up the last sets yesterday while Alex was napping. I’m about halfway done with this quilt already! I’m putting it aside for awhile so I can finish putting together the guild challenge quilt for the next meeting (Dec 12th) and so I can put the borders on the scrappy 9-patch quilt. I have the borders cut out/put together, just need to attach them to the 9-patch quilt. Not sure when I’ll get around to quilting it, I don’t think I even have a backing for it! But at least I know I made a quilt 100% from my stash of fabrics. Not 1 piece was bought for it!

I keep forgetting to mention that I’ve been asked to teach EQ classes for another guild in my area. Classes will be once a month for 2 hours starting in January. Obviously I’ll need to take a few months off once the baby is born, but they are aware of it and maybe I can do some lessons they can work on independently while I get the house back in order here. We’ll see what happens. Now I need to get started on lessons!!!

Hope to be back with an update this afternoon on the scrappy 9-patch, it shouldn’t be too hard to get it finished while Alex naps this afternoon.

Linking up to Patchworktimes.

Guild Block Challenge

Well, I finished the blocks I needed to make in order to put my top together. I made 4 blocks for the corners, all the challenge blocks will go in the middle. I’ve put some of them in just as an example. I am hoping to work on cutting out the sashing pieces tomorrow and attach them to the blocks. I am hoping I still have enough of the challenge fabric to do the borders, I’m pretty sure I do have enough, but I’m not cutting it up until I have everything put together. I used my Accuquilt Go to cut out most of the pieces for the corner blocks, I think it was cut out in less than an hour!

I’m really happy with how this is turning out so far and next I’ll need to decide how to quilt it. I really don’t want to think about that part yet though! I have a lot of other tops to get quilted!

I can’t wait to see how everyone else sets their blocks. It will be great if finished tops will get more people in the guild to participate next year. I really like the colors in the Hoffman Challenge fabric for 2014.

Time for me to go and see if I can finish the binding on my scrappy table topper. Hoping to post the finished piece tomorrow!

Progress!!!

Boy am I on a roll this week! I mentioned on the weekend that I designed a quilt in EQ that I had found on someone’s website. Yesterday I spent some time cleaning up my office so I could get back to work. It took me less than 2 hours and I have a completed table topper (about 22″ x 22″). I found a backing today and got it all pinned so I can quilt it tomorrow. I’m just doing straight line quilting, and I’ll put a black binding on it. I really like how it turned out! It used up 41 2.5″ squares that I already had cut up in the bin. I just needed to cut the long black pieces on the sides, which was pretty quick! The pattern shows a 5 x 5 block quilt. I think just one is perfect for a table topper!

Today I spent a couple of hours and finally quilted my table runner (mentioned here) – again just straight line quilting as it didn’t really need anything more than that. I started hand stitching the binding to the back this evening, when I get finished I’ll post all the details on it.

While I had my tub of batting scraps out today I pulled enough batting pieces to fit my Red, White and Blue Signature quilt. So once I get these 2 quilts done I can work on quilting the signature quilt. It will most likely be straight line quilting too, just because it’s easy and quick!

Alex and I stopped at Joann’s today, I needed to pick up a frame for the wedding gift I finished over the weekend. They have a big sale going on this week and I picked up some fat quarters, a yard or so of white Kona and just over a yard of Cars fabric for a quilt for Alex. Don’t know what design I’ll use yet, but I do have some ideas rolling around in my head. I want to get some of these other projects done before I start making this new one for him.

Looks like this baby wants mama to go to sleep, I never got a nap today and I’m getting to the point that I just can’t keep my eyes open!

New Purchase

OMG! I can’t believe I just pushed the button and bought the Accuquilt Studio! I have no idea where it’s going to live, I’d love a table that rolls underneath my big 6′ wide sewing table. That would be the ideal solution, I just don’t know if that will happen. I also bought a 5″ charm square die that cuts 8 at a time, I’m hoping to be able to cut charms and put them on etsy. I’d like to also cut other peoples fabric – maybe something like drunkard’s path dies, or winding ways, etc. I just don’t know if it would sell or not. I hope this isn’t a case of buyer’s remorse already!! 🙂

I hope to start working on some sewing this week, since I designed a few quilts this week while I was testing EQ, I have a lot of ideas! I also have to fix an embroidery order for my friends bakery, I guess pregnancy brain hit me early and I didn’t do the full design on her shirts. Logo is there, but the name of her business is not!

I did finish the cross stitch piece for the wedding, just need to get to Joann’s and get the frame. I’ll get a picture up once it’s framed.

Til later,

Electric Quilt on the Mac!

I am super thrilled!!!! A few months ago someone posted on one of my EQ groups that EQ was coming out with a version for the Mac. After we got our tax refund last year I moved to a MacBook Pro laptop and this year after we got our tax refund I got a Mac Mini. Since I really only have a few programs that run in windows or don’t have a replacement version for the Mac I decided to use Parallels and run those programs under windows on my macs. So when I found out that a Mac version was coming I was all for it! This means 1 less program I need to use Parallels for, and if I ever find a decent embroidery program for the Mac that isn’t a lot of money I might be able to get rid of it!

Any way, they were looking for people to beta test and I signed right up. We just got the beta version a week or so ago and I’ve been spending time as I can on it. I like taking quilts I find on websites or in magazines and redesigning them in EQ. This allows me to make changes to them as I need, depending on what colors I have in fabric or sizes I have already cut out. I designed one recently from a website that is 5 x 5 25-patch blocks with sashing to make a quilt measuring 86″ x 86″. Of course I need to see what the different sizes are going to be so I looked at 4×4, 3×3, 2×2, and 1×1. I think I might start with making the 1×1 because it’s the perfect size for a table topper! This might be the best way for me to get sewing again!

Where have I been???

Wow, it’s been a LONG time since I posted anything! I was trying hard this summer to get my hexie diamonds quilt finished for our quilt show, until they posted that quilts had to be completed by the end of September. AHHHHH! I’d never make it since I had 3 rows to finish, plus the black fill in spots at the top and bottom, PLUS quilting it? Yeah, I decided to just put it aside and work on it slow and just have it ready for the next show. Then I realized I needed to start working on a cross stitch piece for a wedding gift. Now of course it’s still not done and the wedding is next weekend! The bride works with the hubby and asked Alex to be the ring bearer! He’s going to look so cute in a tux, I just don’t know if he’s going to do what he’s asked or not!

In July the hubby went to California to see his dad for his 70th birthday. Alex and I stayed home since I don’t really want to take him on an airplane yet! (There’s another reason why we didn’t go that I’ll explain in another post.) Turns out it was a good thing we didn’t go as Alex got sick that weekend and had a 100 degree fever – only for about 24 hours though! Anyway, I found out there was a new quilt shop (The Quilt Loft) that opened within walking distance of his dad’s house. We’ve always had this deal that if one of us went out of town, the other would bring back a “prize”. So I told him where he could get my prize! So he went and picked out a jelly roll of Icicle Kisses by Kansas Troubles Quilters. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I will come up with something!

I was playing around with one of my Accuquilt Go dies and made this little table runner. I’ve had it pinned for awhile, just haven’t gotten around to sitting down at the machine to quilt it! This was a charm pack that I ran through on the triangle die (don’t remember which one off hand since we are camping while I write this post!) and just put them together into 2 rows. Haven’t decided if I will square it off once quilted or bind it with the angled corners. Once we get home from camping I will look at which die I used and also get the information for which line this was from.

Spent some time working on blocks for our Guild block exchange using the 2013 Hoffman Challenge fabric. All blocks have been exchanged and now it’s time to put it all together into a quilt. We want to have all the quilt tops completed by the December meeting so we can hopefully get more people to participate next year! I’ll do another post with those once we get home, I haven’t taken pictures of all the blocks yet!

I received an email yesterday from Accuquilt that the Studio cutter is on sale again for $399, the lowest price I’ve seen all year. I’ve been debating it for a long time, mainly because there are a few dies I’d love to have that are only made for the Studio. Plus I’ve been thinking about adding die cuts to my business, since at some point I need to get that going again. I currently only have 2 customers for embroidery work and I need to start making things I can put on etsy. Die cuts might be a good thing, quick and I could even cut customer fabrics! Plus right now is triple reward points and that will be nice, since it will give me a good way to buy more dies at limited cost to me! 🙂

Time to charge the laptop and make some lunch, I’ll be back later with more of where I’ve been!

Wiggly Whimsy Finish, New Toys

Yep I did it, I finished my Wiggly Whimsy top! I ended up taking 2 different seams out and reattaching them. Still have a couple of small puckers in one of the seams, but it won’t be noticable once it’s quilted. Now I need to find a backing and get some batting so I can get it quilted.
I mentioned the other day that I had spent a little money to get some Accuquilt Go dies that I’ve been wanting. I got the 3″ finished half-square triangle to go with my signature die and a 2″ finished half-square triangle to go with my 2″ finished squares. Anyway, they arrived today! I’ve already started playing with the 3″ HST and signature block dies. I designed a quilt the other day in 2 colors in EQ and today while driving home from lunch started to think of colors I could use. Top colorway? Red, white and blue! I figured I had enough red and blue scraps for the triangles and I was pretty sure I had white I could use for the signature part of the block. I’ve already got 4 blocks done, took me maybe 10 minutes to cut and sew them together! I LOVE how the dog ears are cut off when you use the dies. Everything fits together so nicely and there is no guessing at all! I think I’ll work on cutting as much of this out as I can today and maybe put it together tomorrow. It will finish around 29″x33″ as it is designed right now, I haven’t thought about a border yet and I can always make more blocks and make it larger. We’ll see what I decide. Oh! I also bought the Lil’ Twister template, I love the look of these quilts and I might be able to use a bunch of scraps to make up some easy quilts. Hope to play with this soon too!

So I’ve talked 5 brave souls at guild to do a block exchange. Because none of the quilt shops in our area have the focus fabric that I wanted to use, I placed an order with Hancocks of Paducah and got enough for everyone (they are paying for their yardage!). I really like the fabric and it’s just enough out of my comfort zone that it will be interesting to see what everyone does with it. Since there are only a total of 6 people (that’s including me) if everyone does 2 12″ finished blocks it will be a decent sized quilt – around 38″ x 50″, if it’s on point it’s around 40″ square. Now I need to go shopping for some additional fabrics and do some designing to figure out what blocks I want to make. I’m thinking one simple and one that is a little more complicated.

Well, I want to get back to playing with my new dies, so I’ll be back soon with an update!

Designing Quilts

I don’t know what the heck I was thinking in designing another quilt today, but I did. I was browsing ebay and saw a quilt I liked that was just 9 patches alternated with solid black squares. So I decided that since I have so many 2.5″ squares to use up that I’d just design the same thing so the 9 patches would use my squares. I’ll have to manually rotary cut the black alternate squares, but that will be pretty easy since they are cut at 6 1/2″. There are 41 9 patches, 40 alternate blocks, and 60 4 patches for the border. It will take awhile to complete this, but I can use the 9 patches and 4 patches as leader/enders while I work on other projects! I have plenty of black since I just bought that bolt at Joann’s, so I should be able to do all of this from what I have at home. I’ll worry about backing and binding once it’s complete. Maybe I’ll use some of my equinox for the back, I don’t know. I have quite awhile before I have to worry about it!

Quilting Stencils

Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about what to use on the ribbon table runner for quilting. So I started looking through my stencils and my Quilting Designs software by Electric Quilt. I found a couple of stencils that would work for the large areas, but not for the 4″ square sections. So I started looking through the software. I have 7 of the 8 volumes of stencils, I think I have the books for 5 of those. I found a few that I think will work. So I got a few pictures so I can ponder it while I finish the table topper I’m working on. What do you think about my selections? Now I’ll need to figure out the best way of marking the ones I’ve printed out on the runner!

New Quilt/Learnings

Well, I’ve been busy this week! I posted on Monday that I started a new quilt, it’s now done! Here’s my question though, does it need another border? It’s about 36″ x 36″ and I’m only planning on using it as a quilt in the car, for Alex or if we go on a picnic or something. I won’t be quilting it until I get my new stencils – and I don’t know when that will be since my order says Pending on the site! It went together very quickly and I love that I used fabrics from the stash, NOTHING new was bought!

I’ve been thinking about my next hexagon quilt this week and I think I’ve got it designed the way I want it. The example I found on PaperPieces.com has the diamonds vertically, but I think I like them on their sides. None of the colors in the EQ version match what I’m actually going to use, since I’ll be pulling from the 2.5″ square bin to make all the diamonds. I think I’ll do all the diamonds and then put them together with the white, or at least I’ll see how far I get with the hexi papers I already have printed out! I’ve figured I need 59 full diamonds and 12 half diamonds and this one will finish at 79″ x 85″. Huge for me! I just checked sizes and it looks like that might be large enough to fit our king size bed! I’d have to put big enough borders to hang down the sides, although I might put it on the bed in the guest room. It’ll be awhile before it’s finished, so I guess it doesn’t matter right now!

I was playing with EQ today while Alex played and hubby was busy on his laptop and learned some new things. I didn’t realize that you could create a quilt layout from a block! Here’s the caveat though, the block can only have horizontal and vertical lines – no diagonals or it won’t work. I also figured out how to break blocks apart in Word so that you can show how to make a block, that’s cool! I did find something I’m disappointed in though, I created the new hexagon quilt in EQ on my mac (using software called VirtualBox to run windows) and created it in a new project. I can move blocks, layouts (uncolored), photos, fabrics into another project but not colored quilts! I wanted to move the new quilt into my hexagon project, that sucker took a long time to color in! Oh well, maybe in the next version?

Well, I’m off to start working on the new hexagon quilt, I think I’ll print out some more papers, I think I’ll need them!