Yesterday’s doodles over on our sister site – chrisand barbaraquilts – have moved onto a more festive look with holly and a peony (not sure peonies are in flower right now, but fabric ones can be!)
These are the default colours from EQ
but as was suggested yesterday you can recolour them to suit your mood, decor, or the season
If you want to make the blocks you can download the instructions – templates for 6, 9 and 12 inch blocks – here.
It can be fun to play with with blocks by adding a few lines in EQ – no one says you actually have to make them but if you do want to make this block you can download the templates for 6 inch and 9 inch blocks here. As we have looked at the Big and Little Trees block earlier I have been playing with this one – just one result today but you can play along by drawing lines on the block to colour included in the download earlier in the month.
This is just a simple alteration as I have just drawn a couple of diagonal lines across the big tree and straight ones across the little tree. I could have done it the other way about or done both the same but I thought I would leave those to your imagination or let you try it on paper.
You can use both the blocks in a quilt or in a table runner – it can be effective to flip a block or two as well.
I have a new computer and thus a new download of EQ and haven’t yet played with the settings – the black ‘seam’ lines look quite heavy in this mock-up and have made the block look like stained glass, so there’s another idea for you!
Our block this month over on chrisandbarbaraquilts is called Big and Little Trees.
These are the default colourings of the block in EQ but we can play around with those a little – here we have just changed the greens and added in a few seasonal fabrics – as it is that time of year we have assumed these trees are conifers / Christmas trees. But they could be any tree so you could make your trees more autumnal and colour them in shades of yellow, orange and russet.
You can download the templates for 6 inch and 9 inch blocks here as well as colouring pages for the block and a quilt.
. . . . to make a few quick Christmas decorations or presents. Have a look at our Free Patterns page for some quick and easy ideas for you to make – or to give to the young stitchers in your family.
You will find a tree skirt, a wreath, a mug rug, lots of decorations for the tree and a few quick gift ideas –
These are just a few of what’s available.
A couple of new patterns (for quite old quilts) have been added to the Meadowside Christmas shop this month in time for December – just go to the Christmas category once you find the shop. If you are in need of table toppers or small wall-hangings we have several ideas including the two just added.
First is a small quilt (just 23 inches) called Sirius – this uses fat quarters and is really quick and easy. The pattern includes some other ideas to play with as well.
The other ‘new’ quilt just added is a Log Cabin variation called Stars and Wreaths. You can fussy-cut the centres as I did, or – if you don’t want to drive yourself mad unpicking things – just choose a pretty and contrasting print.
Also in the shop you will find a star made using diamond Log Cabin (we do like Log Cabin!)
The Poinsettia quilt which gave rise to the runner featured in the last post
One called Christmas Crackers
and finally Winter Blues which also looks good in Christmas colours.
We seem to be more than halfway through October already. How and when did that happen? This seriously weird year seems to be passing even quicker than a normal one – which is possibly a good thing. Anyway, halfway through October means it is time to hunt out those seasonal fabrics to make ‘stuff’ to decorate the home with. (Notice we are avoiding the C word!)
Over in the Meadowside shop we have a number of seasonal items that are quick to make so we’ll have a review of some of them in the next few weeks, starting with table runners today. Click on the runner name to go to the pattern page in the shop. None of the patterns are expensive and all have step-by-step illustrations.
One that has proved popular over the years is the Tangled Star runner. The pattern provided has lots of ideas and it can be made with templates or rotary cut and machine pieced.
This next runner is called Aunt Dinah – after the name of the block. Although this one is made in non-seasonal colours we have added a mock-up of a red/green/white colourway on the pattern page to give you an idea of what you could make at this time of year.
The next few runners are really quick and easy – they all started life as one-day workshops. This first one we called the Fat Quarter Runner as it originally used a bundle of five fat quarters, but you could use fewer – this one illustrated used four plus the background.
Christmas Stars is just one block but the colours are switched in alternate blocks
The Zig-zag Stars runner is a similar concept – one block, different colouring
Another runner in the collection is the Poinsettia. This uses the blocks from the Poinsettia wall-hanging pattern but puts them together in a line instead of a square.
All the runners shown can be made bigger by adding further borders or pointed ends – as the Aunt Dinah runner has. Or you can go the other way and turn the blocks into table toppers by joining four blocks in a 2 x 2 setting.
Lots of patterns can be made into seasonal items simply by changing the colouring, or these Christmas ones (oh – we said it, sorry) can be made for any time of the year by using colours to suit your decor. There are a lot of patterns in our shop but if you look at the top you will find ‘category’ tabs so you can look for runners, or for Christmas, or whatever else you need, which will narrow things down a bit!
Will you manage to do a runner before December??
Happy Christmas! We have lots of downloads for you today – the promised colouring book of all the designs featured so far and two sets of templates for today’s block -a Dresden Plate Star. The templates for a 12inch square Star are here.
It’s never too early (or late?) to start a Christmas quilt or runner and this Star is ideal!
You can of course make it in a variety of other colours for other times of the year.
You can also make a rectangular Dresden Plate (you can do this with all the designs) and this one would look good as the centre of a Dresden Plate sampler quilt for instance. You can download the templates to make the rectangular block here. It will measure 12 x 24 inches – a runner all by itself!
And here is a quick mock-up (courtesy of EQ) of a Dresden Plate sampler quilt. This one has a controlled colour palette, but a scrappy one would look good too.
We’ll see you next year with yet more ideas and patterns.In the meantime don’t forget to look on the Free Patterns page for yet more ideas with Dresden Plates among other things.
Happy New Year!
As many of you know we try every month to put up some EQ doodles on our sister website chrisandbarbaraquilts. And from time to time we try to remember to supplement those doodles here with instructions or templates to make the block or blocks featured.
Barbara was feeling a little festive at the beginning of the month and has come up with two blocks – Five-Patch Chain and Rolling Star which she has combined to make a series of interesting designs. Here’s one of them and you will find plenty of others on our Doodles page.
You can download the templates for a 10 inch Rolling Star block here and the rotary cutting measurements for a 10 inch Five-Patch Chain here. Over on the Chris and Barbara blog you can download a colouring sheet for a quilt – which you can print out as many times as you wish, cut a few up, re-arrange the blocks and design your own doodle.
I’m not sure I dare mention that its getting on for December – the Autumnal equinox has been and gone and although we still have Hallowe’en and Bonfire Night to get through some thoughts are turning more towards the end of the year. . .
Many years ago we made mug rugs (aka coasters) with Young Quilters and I recently found the instructions on my computer. I’ve updated it and made a new mug rug, taking photos as I went. Its now on the Free Patterns page for you to download. Or you can download it directly here.
This is the original rug mug made last century!
It’s really simple and may not even involve any sewing at all – just glue could be enough, although I have stitched the final bit to be sure of holding it all together. We made our rug mugs in Christmas fabrics but you can of course use any colours you fancy. They are quick and easy to make and just involve folding the fabric. Little stitchers may require some supervision with the iron and ensuring that vast quantities of glue are not spread everywhere!
If mug rugs don’t do it for you – add a loop of ribbon to one corner and hang it from the tree or a garland as a decoration.
It may be a long time until December but those red and green festive prints are going to start arriving in the shops very soon! So I have just added a new pattern to the Payhip shop (it used to be on Craftsy (RIP) but the new site – Bluprint – has removed it along with most of my other patterns).
I have (with the usual imagination) named it Poinsettias. It is a small wall-hanging or table topper, measuring 32 inches square when finished.
The pattern also includes instructions to turn the blocks into a table runner instead of a table topper.
Or you could go mad and make a full size festive quilt.
Whichever you choose those little flowers are a great way to use up your red scraps!
meadowside-designs 