chickensense

I have 2 blocks of my Vintage Valentine Applique Quilt done.  I’m plugging away at the 3rd. I love the pattern, but am not so happy with the fabric that was in this kit.

Vintage Valentine Block 1

Vintage Valentine Block 4

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Baltimore Bliss, an absolutely gorgeous quilt available as block of the month patterns from Sindy Rodenmayer of Fat Cat Patterns.

Be sure to visit the Fat Cat Patterns each month to get the next quilt block for free.

UPDATE July 2009: I have my very own blog now: chickenlady quilts on Blogger.

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I am having so much fun designing on Electric Quilt! I can make quilts with fabric I could never afford to buy.

Here is another one from the Leaping Frogs pattern. I call it Beautiful Batik Frogs. Click on the image to see an enlarged copy. I’ll bet a real quilt in batiks would really shimmer. I’ve made the frog block in two sizes now, 12″ with a wide-body frog, and 10″ with a narrower body.

UPDATE July 2009: I have my very own blog now: chickenlady quilts on Blogger.

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My friend, Mrs. Jean, showed me the most darling frog block. I couldn’t find it anywhere online so I made it myself in Electric Quilt. Here is the block, and a quilt I designed for it.

(I have found out that this pattern was in Quiltmaker Magazine #24, Fall 1991. It is called Leap Frog, and was a 10″ block. Mine is 12″)

If you would like the Electric Quilt 6 version of the block and/or quilt that I drafted, email your request to kbarberms at yahoo dot com.

UPDATE July 2009: I have my very own blog now: chickenlady quilts on Blogger.

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I recently joined a very active online quilt group called Quilting Around the World. It is a great group of people, and they always have lots of swaps going on. So many swaps, as a matter of fact, that you have to be careful not to get in over your head.

Not heeding my own advice, I immediately signed up for several swaps:

Yellow Churn Dash Swap, which is swapping yellow churn dash blocks. This one I’ve already finished.

The Barbie Swap, which is a swap of pink, black and white blocks. I decided to use a block I call “Throwing Stars.” I spent several hours last night struggling to get the first one done. It is a paper-pieced block and it is a little tricky. I think I’ve got it now. (I hope.)

1930’s Dresden Fans, where we are swapping fans made from 1930’s reproduction fabric. These are so fast and easy to make! I’m loving it.

The January Block Lotto, where people send in one block and there will be a drawing to see who wins them all. I’m making a block I found on Quilters Cache, called Goshen Star, except I’m making it a 12 inch block in blue and white.

The Garden Swap, a 3 round swap which includes applique blocks in a garden theme. This one is, by far, the most ambitious. The first round has to be applique, so I’m making a flower with a butterfly on it. (I’ll get a photo soon.)

UPDATE July 2009: I have my very own blog now: chickenlady quilts on Blogger.

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UPDATE July 2009: I have my very own quilt blog now on Blogger: chickenladyquilts.blogspot.com.

I found that it is sooo easy to make piecing diagrams in Electric Quilt 6!

1. Open a blank document in Microsoft Word
2. Open EQ6 with the block you want. (so it is on the block worktable.)
3. Click FILE then click EXPORT METAFILE OF BLOCK
4. Choose COPY TO WINDOWS CLIPBOARD
5. Choose the quality you want and choose OUTLINE ONLY
6. Go back to your document in Word and click FILE, then EDIT, then PASTE
7. Click the RIGHT mouse button on the block drawing that is now in your document, and choose EDIT
8. Click with the cursor to drag each patch wherever you want it

VOILA!

If the block drawing is too large in your Word document, click with the RIGHT mouse button on the drawing and choose SHOW DRAWING CANVAS TOOLBAR. Then click the SCALE DRAWING button on the toolbar, and click and drag from one of the dots that appears on the frame to shrink the drawing as much as you want.

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I have been playing with EQ6 the last couple of days. I bought it long ago but never really used it much. It is a nice program but definitely not intuitive. I’m pretty good with computers but I had to read the tutorial to figure out how to do things.

I’ve designed a pink-black-white quilt. I got the idea from a swap on Quilting Around the World (www.quiltingaroundtheworld.com) called the Barbie Swap. I’m hoping they’ll have another round so I can enter with one of my blocks.

Some of these blocks would be very difficult to actually make. They have lots of those pesky in-set seams. I’ve never made anything with in-set seams so perhaps it’ll be a New Year’s resolution.
I have actually made a Weathervane block. (That’s the left-most block in the 3rd row.) Instead of using in-set seams I made it with half-square triangles as shown on Quilter’s Cache. www.quilterscache.com.

I’ve also made the right-most block in the first row. It is called Next Door Neighbor block. I’ve made the middle block in the next to the last row, the Lemoyne star, which I pieced by hand. And I’ve made lots and lots of Sawtooth Stars, the right-most block in the second row. I’ve made them with solid centers to show off the fabric. All of these can be found at Quilter’s Cache. Love that site!

UPDATE July 2009: I have my very own blog now: chickenlady quilts on Blogger.

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I’ve really been in a quilting lull these last couple of years. In 2007 my New Year’s Resolution was to finish the quilt tops I already have before I would allow myself to buy any more fabric. I’ve mostly stuck to my resolution, and I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Tomorrow I will cut and apply the binding for my floral quilt. This quilt is made up of 5″ squares of floral fabrics which were swapped with about 15 ladies in Faith Quilters group in Barton, MS. After the swap we had a sewing day where we all worked on our floral quilts. It was so neat to see all the finished quilts and recognize the squares of fabric we had swapped with each other.

Today I started piecing the backing for my sunflower mystery quilt. This was another quilt project the Faith Quilters all did together. It was led by Ruthie Mann. It was so fun to see how different everyone’s quilt came out.

I have the sashing and borders cut and ready to apply to my Kandy Korn paper-pieced wall-hanging. I still have to sandwich and quilt my small Christmas appliqué wall-hanging. All I have left on the Pumpkin appliqué wall-hanging is the quilting, which I was going to do by hand, but I’m now going to machine quilt so I can just get it done. My last finished top to sandwich is the Christmas Minnesota Hot Dish that I made in a class with Linda more than 5 years ago.

UPDATE July 2009: I have my very own blog now: chickenlady quilts on Blogger.

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