We discovered a way to distort blocks in EQ the other day and it seemed mean not to go and play with the Ohio Star blocks we’ve been messing about with the rest of the year.
Just a gentle distort of the star points to begin but then we gradually went more wild!
Not sure we would want to make any of them and the resulting quilts weren’t anything to write home about either – but we had a fun half-hour!
In the winter months when its cold, dark and damp – nothing to be done in the garden, too dark to see to thread a needle – its time to play with quilt design software. Usually this is EQ8, I do have QuiltPro but I find EQ easier to have fun with. Over the next few months I thought we’d explore a few things I have been playing with, and a few things that EQ does to help with inspiration. The huge bonus is that you can make dozens of virtual quilts and no one says you have to actually make them out of real fabric.
Its the beginning of the year so let’s start with that perennial favourite – the Ohio Star, and I haven’t changed its colour – this is the default colouring from EQ. You can download the cutting instructions for a 12 inch block here and check on our free blocks page to download 6 inch and 9 inch ones.
To start with I chose to use the Serendipity facility and then chose ‘Frame Block’ – there are dozens of frames to choose from here and I spent a happy day playing with all of them. To start off with though I thought I’d just use the three most basic ones – the ones most of us are likely to use.
First up is one that just adds a border to two sides.
Then four sides
and then four sides with cornerstones.
The Ohio Star block straight set 4 x 4 into a quilt can look a bit so-so although adding sashing, especially with cornerstones, improves matters as it makes the block boundaries more defined.
But then what happens when we start to play with our bordered blocks? I had the option of mixing up the blocks – using one, two or all of them in a quilt; turning or flipping the blocks; and of course adding sashing.These are the ones I liked best, choosing just one of each.
I haven’t given any sizes for sashing as it depends on the size of your starting blocks and on personal preference.
If you want to play but don’t have EQ you can do what we did back in olden times – draw everything out on squared paper, cut it up, rearrange it etc. – its just not as quick!
meadowside-designs 