Scrappidy-Do-Dah EQ7 Quilt Plans

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I have the Electric Quilt 7 design program on my computer and played with the Scrappidy-Do-Dah blocks in the program and came up with these simple designs.   Even though the blocks I made are scrappy I made the diagram in just a couple shades of blue.  I can see the design and not spend hours coloring the different vales of the blues.

The border designs are not too complicated but don’t want to just end the quilt at the edge of the blocks and also don’t want to introduce another design.

Until Later,
Lynn

Flags and Fireworks

I want to wish Americans a Happy 4th of July where ever they are. We will be attending a picnic at relatives this evening then watching the fireworks that the town puts on. Will be enjoyable I am sure.

I made the quilt in the photo above in 1993 and I named it Flags and Fireworks. It is a small wall hanging, approximately 20" square. It was machine pieced using templates those many years ago and it is hand quilted.

The idea for the quilt came from this book - Quilts Galore by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes called "Triple Star / Sawtooth Star."

They used 12" blocks for the triple star and 6" blocks for the sawtooth star but I drafted the blocks in my Electric Quilt program to be 8" and 4". The setting is similar but different too. I liked the idea of the zig zag on the border so added one to mine too. I used fabric with small flags on it and fussy cut them so the would all be standing upright and centered in the areas where they were pieced.

I do want you to notice that the one small plaid fabric has faded pretty badly. I hung this for years in my house, not in direct light but indirect light but it still faded. The darker paisley fabric in the stars in the corners has faded a little but nothing like the plaid, but the good quality fabric I used in the outside border has not appeared to have faded at all.

Have been thinking of using a pigment marker and touching up the navy in the fabric since there is not a whole lot of it. Has anyone done that and how did it work?

I did get my house de-cluttered yesterday and got all the laundry done with the exception of one load of towels that are going now. It is a good feeling to be able to look around and not see a mess everywhere. I do want you to know I didn't work on dusting and vacuuming though, the rest of it took me the entire day. I got distracted a few times with other things too - sure don't want you to think I was that deep in clutter!

I sat down at the sewing machine for about a half an hour yesterday afternoon to do a little buttonhole stitching on my flower basket. Think a load of laundry got finished so that was the end of that for the day but it was a start and it felt good to sew.

Sitting here thinking about our 4th of July celebrations and wondered if any readers of my blog from other countries have country wide celebrations similar to our 4th of July and how you celebrate. Let me know as I am always interested in finding out about about the lifestyles of others who don't live where I do.

Lynn

Another Doll Bed

Tulip Garden - 6 1/2" x 8 1/2'

Made in 1994

Today you get to see another of my doll beds. This was the very first doll bed I ever owned. Bought it because I thought it was so cute and it was only a few dollars on sale. I probably would never have started making miniature doll bed quilts and collecting doll beds if this bed would have come with a pretty bedspread. It was covered with an ugly piece of fabric so after I got it home I wondered if I could make a quilt sort of to scale that would look good on this doll bed.

That started my journey of collecting doll beds and making the tiny quilts that go on them. My friends and relatives have given me many of the ones in my collection over the years but now have put a moratorium on any more for a while at least. I have 30 doll beds that I have made quilts for and probably another 25 that are just waiting. Most of the doll beds are quite small and are the kind that doll house hobbyists use but I do have a few larger ones in my collection as well as some tiny ones.

I don't make the quilts using exact scale but design them to look right to me on the bed. I just don't want to deal with having to use math to figure out the correct scale. I design most of the doll beds on the computer now using the Electric Quilt program but this first one was drawn out by hand on tissue paper and foundation pieced by machine.

The blocks are 1" square and to give you some figures there are 11 pieces in each block and 276 pieces in the entire quilt if I added up everything right. I hand quilted this quilt between the blocks and in the border.

Guess that is all the information on this quilt - stay tuned for more doll beds and quilts revealed later.

Happy Quilting....
Lynn

Fabric Purse & Another Doll Bed

Feel like I was away from home all week. John and I entertained our German cousin Peter so spent a lot of time "playing" and seeing the sights. We took in Church services last Sunday, South Central Cattlemen's meeting, Husker Harvest Days in Grand Island, had dinners with our daughters and John's sister plus went 4-wheeling, horse back riding (not me-I don't ride)and took a trip out to see the Sandhills area of Nebraska. All that on top of driving to Lincoln (2 1/2 hr trip one way) to pick him up at the airport there and taking him to Omaha (3 hr trip one way) yesterday to catch his plane home. Whew...no wonder I am tired!

I have some fabrics gathered to make this bag/purse pictured below. Of course I will not use all the fabrics but this is the color pallet I selected - now to weed out the ones I don't want. They showed this bag/purse at the last Club Sew at the meeting at the Bernina Store in Lincoln in September. Really liked it so will give it a go. Want to try some of the techniques that they showed on one of the purses she made. Have a pin tuck foot and will use that on some area and want to couch some yarn too.

Thought I would get to it this afternoon but after catching up on reading all my lists and answering email the afternoon has just slipped by. I have not checked my favorite blogs yet either.

I belong to several Yahoo lists and get a digest from them everyday. This week I have not had time to read any of them so had many to read then delete. I enjoy these lists as there is a constant flow of questions and answers. I contribute very little but read them everyday and have learned a lot, picked up tips, etc. There are groups for any subject you might be interested in but I belong to NebraskaQuilters, Applique-Lovers, Applique-Addicts, one for my Bernina Sewing Machine called 430_440_630_640_730 and a list Info-EQ from Planet Patchwork (good help if you own the Electric Quilt program.) I used to also belong to a few digital camera lists and a couple of garden lists but have dropped them - too much reading and I couldn't keep up.

Some groups have a lot of messages everyday and others don't have very many or may go several days between messages.

The doll quilt I am going to show you today is called Swamp Star. I made it in 1997, designed it on the Electric Quilt program and the blocks were foundation pieced. Four of the 3/4" blocks make up each star. The quilt is hand quilted along the seams. I purchased the doll bed in New Orleans so that suggested the name I gave to the quilt.

Weather report for today....it is windy and temps are mid 60s but the sun is shining. After a week of overcast and rainy weather the sun that came out yesterday afternoon was wonderful!

Lynn

Waiting for Halloween

I received an email asking about the pattern for the applique in the latest quilt I finished - "Waiting for Halloween." I am sorry I forgot to tell you where the pattern came from on that blog posting.

I used a pattern from the book pictured below "Two-Hour Mini Quilt Projects" by McKenzie Kate c. 1997 and made changes to to it for my quilt block. I enlarged it joined the motifs together without the spaces and added front legs to the cat and eliminated the heart. The pattern in the book showed the design fused onto the lid of a wooden box.

The book is packed full of easy applique designs by several designers and the design I used was by Rebecca Carter. I have used quite a few of the applique designs from this book at different times since I purchased it but I don't always use the design the same way the designers did. I may use it as a jumping off point for another design or change it to fit what I want to do at the time.

The quilt I am going to show you today is another one I made a few years ago. It is called "Color Play" an original design made in 2004. My goal for this quilt was to do a color wheel and had fun finding the various colors for my small Mariner's compass blocks. It is machine pieced and hand quilted and to finish it I put small Prairie Points around the outside of the quilt. I hang it using one straight pin and have the yellow points at the top of the quilt like you see other color wheels displayed. I used the Electric Quilt computer program to design the small compass blocks and the setting. Love that program!!! I use it in almost every quilt I make some way or other. http://www.electricquilt.com/

It took a little math to get the space divided up equally for the Prairie Points and get them inserted between the front and backing euqally spaced but did finally get them to fit the way I wanted. This quilt received a first place ribbon for hand quilted miniature at the 2004 State Fair.

Today I have really not gotten anything done but cook and catching up on some paper work. I did manage to get to a quilt shop yesterday to purchase enough coordinating fabric for the purse I want to make but still need to get it washed. I wash all my fabric before I use it - have had one real big mess and never want to repeat that problem!

Went to Husker Harvest Days (Really, really big farm show) yesterday in Grand Island with John and Peter so after we left the grounds I had a chance to pick up the fabric I needed before we had supper with my sister-in-law's family.

Lynn