Electric Quilt 7 | Grey Cat Quilts

Fabric On Its Way…

13 07 2012

Hopefully anyway!

I ordered the fabric for setting my Farmer’s Wife blocks. So excited to get this stuff in and play with it! I decided on Kona solids, since every block uses prints. I also wanted to go with a range of colors…

Yup, the EQ7 illustration above is the plan for the Farmer’s Wife blocks, courtesy of Sandi at Piecemeal Quilts. More gray, because I’m kind of obsessed right now. Gray is eating my brain. Ignore the fact that those aren’t the FWS blocks – I was too lazy to re-draw them or look them up, especially since I was mostly concerned with just the setting at the moment.

I’m digging this – I really just want to get started!

More Fun with Free Piecing

11 07 2012

I couldn’t stop. I’m going to have to follow this project through to a completed quilt top. Thankfully, I can zoom through four or five of the scrappy centers in an evening. I drew up the completed project in EQ7, so that I could figure out how much background fabric I’d need, since I only bought two yards, and my intention had been to quit when I ran out. EQ7 tells me I’ll need 4.25 yards… I’ll have to see how many patches I’m getting out of each fabic strip and see if that’s correct.

I’m finding myself fascinated by how one scrappy block will inform the next, as I pull larger scraps from the baskets and create little fabric mosaics that are further sliced and diced as I add to a 2.5″ wide stripe. Scraps, of course, are not being used as quickly as I would like, but it’s nice to start using these bits and pieces of fabric that I haven’t had the heart to throw away.

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Cheating on the Farmer's Wife Part Deux
Categories : Electric Quilt 7, Quilting

BOM Quilt Design

30 05 2012

I’m an overachiever.

I’m an overachiever, and I like to take the less-beaten path.

…

Yes.

Yes, I am insane.

🙂

Insanity, this time, led me to being determined to come up with a unique setting for the Botanical BOM blocks I’m making with the Stitch ‘N’ Bitch group.

Much easier said than done, obviously, as my mind regarded the blocks with a kind of blank pseudo-interest that said, “I’ll make you. You’re pretty,” and left the blocks in pile in the corner of my mind, nary a quilt top design to be seen. In fact, my mind then went skipping off into making scrappy blocks, no matter how much I tried to rein it in.

And then a light shone in the darkness!

The mail carrier brought me latest Hancock’s of Paducah fabric catalog! For a few days, my mental self crouched in a corner clutching the catalog, stroking each page, muttering, “My preciouses…”

I’m pretty sure had I looked into a mirror, I would have been balding and grey, with saucer discs for eyes better suited to a cave-dwelling lemur.

As I stared at the pages, an image advertising a quilt top/kit caught my (saucer) eye. The Women of Courage BOM quilt top made me stop and think.

And then I reached for my laptop.

I still need to find two more botanical themed blocks for the lower corners. I also am playing around with the idea of changing out the blocks that comprised that central ‘plus sign’. However, I’m sticking with that pop of aqua. The quilt definitely needs it.

We’ll see how much this design evolves as I stare at it!

Comments : 9 Comments »
Tags: Botanical BOM 2012
Categories : Block of the Month, Electric Quilt 7, Process, Quilting

I Hate My Brain…

30 09 2011

I’ve finished Urban Worm, gotten back on the horse with the Farmer’s Wife Sampler, and have actually been feeling creative. So, I turned my attention to the Kona Cotton Challenge once again. I’d actually designed a top for it in EQ7:

I like it. It’s very traditional, very pretty… and would have made for a crap ton of piecing, and more effective with yardage, not charms. Not exactly what I was going for.

So, my brain has been stewing on this conundrum. In my sleep. I woke up two days ago with the image of a design burning a hole in my consciousness. It would not leave me alone. So I finally got a chance to draw it out and make some tweaks to this design:

The flying geese that are all the same color – that’s just a placeholder color for while I play around with the charm pack and figure out what gradients are getting used. And now I have an almost pathological need to get a Kona color card, so that I can make up the gradients that the charm pack isn’t going to provide me with.

And yes, those are flying geese on a curve.

I am a sick, sick person.

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: Quilt Design
Categories : Electric Quilt 7, Quilting