3-2-1 EQ7 Seasons Row Along Countdown is On

TUESDAY is the day! September 1 begins the event we designers have been working toward for months. And, we hope you have been anxiously awaiting for a few weeks. We are encouraged by those of you who have joined the Facebook page, where we have given hints, found out where you all are from, and more. We will give you answers to any questions that might arise as you make your own rows into those beautiful quilted creations. Remember, you don't have to own EQ7 to get the patterns, but we used the program to design the rows and quilts you will see. There are giveaways happening throughout the 6 weeks so don't forget to visit all the designer sites and enter for your chance to win some mighty spiffy items. 

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September 22 begins my reveal week and I wanted to give you a few little hints of what I have in store. Can you imagine what my block/row is and what season I have?

A little applique.

The flowers look much better with the circle stitching in the centers.

I am adding a row to the bottom to create a bed runner.
And a row is going to be added to the top, too.

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And to start you off on 
Tuesday, September 1, 
here is the line up:

September 1, 2015   

• Marlene at Kissed Quilts  http://www.kissedquilts.blogspot.com
• Lynn at ThimbleMouse  http://thimblemouseandspouse.blogspot.com/ 
• Doris at The Quilting Queen Online  http://www.quiltingqueenonline.com/
• Janine at Quilt Art  http://quiltartdesigns.blogspot.com
• Bea at Be A Quilter  http://www.beaquilter.com
• Anneka at Stof Genoeg  https://stofgenoeg.wordpress.com/

September 8, 2015

• Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts  http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com/
• Carol at Fun Threads  http://funthreads.blogspot.com/
• Amy W. at Sew Incredibly Crazy  http://sewincrediblycrazy.blogspot.com/
• Marian at Seams To Be Sew  http://seamstobesew.com
• Anneke at Stof Genoeg   https://stofgenoeg.wordpress.com/

September 15, 2015 

• Reeze at Morning Glory  http://blog.morningglorydesigns.net/
• Marian at Seams To Be Sew  http://seamstobesew.com
• Jennifer at Sew Hooked  http://sewhooked.com/
• Carol at Just Let Me Quilt  http://www.justletmequilt.com/
• Anneke at Stof Genoeg  https://stofgenoeg.wordpress.com/

September 22, 2015

• Carla at Create In The Sticks  http://createinthesticks.blogspot.com/
• Patti at Patti's Patchwork  http://www.pattispatchwork.com
• Nancy at Patchwork Breeze  http://patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com
• Marian at Seams To Be Sew   http://seamstobesew.com
• Linda at Linda Franz  http://www.lindafranz.com/blog/
• Anneke at Stof Genoeg  https://stofgenoeg.wordpress.com/

September 29, 2015

• Amy H. at Country Junktion  http://www.countryjunktion.com
• Darlene at Quilt Shop Gal  http://quiltshopgal.com/
• Marina at Sews To Be Sew  http://seamstobesew.com
• Loreen at Loreen's Schoolhouse Quilts  http://loreen.typepad.com/loreens_place/
• Anneke at Stof Genoeg   https://stofgenoeg.wordpress.com/

T-Shirt Quilt

In early August I spent a weekend at my daughter's apartment. She wanted to work on a t-shirt quilt for her boyfriend. It is so fun to work together with her on sewing projects.

Previously, she had cut the shirts to one standard size (16" square) and put woven interfacing on each of them. (I use woven interfacing because it truly stabilizes the stretchiness of the knit shirts.) 
She wanted to use as many of his shirts as we could, so we decided to make the back and front with the shirts.

We laid out the shirts in a pleasing and organized manner--middle school mostly reds and high school golds and blacks. She took photos of the arrangements in case we got confused when sewing each seam. 

Her boyfriend did not like the look of all the quilting going over the shirt fronts, so we decided to sew the front and the back as their own quilt top and join them by matching the block corners and tie the corners and the middle of each seam line with pearl cotton. She tied after we got the binding on the layers. (A layer of polyester batting was used between the front and back of the quilts for a bit of fluffiness--and I will say it is going to be a warm quilt.)

Her boyfriend was very pleased with the finished quilt. I heard he was using it to keep warm this evening with our below 60 degree temperatures in Michigan.

LOOKING for my FREE Turtle Pincushion Pattern?  CLICK HERE.

Pincushion Swap and Free Pattern

I joined BeaQuilter's pincushion swap for July-August-September 2015. 

I  made and received pincushions for/from the July and August swap partners. 

I look forward to the September deliveries. 

I am not sure what type of pincushion I will make for September.
I have a number of them on my Pincushion Board on Pinterest.

Here are the two I sent.

To Monika in July

To Judy in August

I designed the pattern for the turtle 

and if you click HERE you can download my free pattern 

from PatternSpot.com. 

If you download the pattern, 

please leave me a comment or send an email - patchworkbreeze(at)gmail(dot)com - telling me where you live (state or country is enough). 

Thanks. 

And the two I have received.

From Monika in July (top and bottom)

From Pauline in August

I want to remind you that in just ONE WEEK we begin

20 designers have created quilt patterns for wonderful rows 

for you to download...FREE!

There are giveaways from wonderful sponsors. 

And a Facebook group you can join HERE.    Put in your request to join. 

My day of reveal will be Sept. 22, 2015. 

Back in the Loop

Yes, I have been out of the loop for days now. I am back and trying to focus on quilting.

Last week I spent 4 days at AQS Quilt Week in Grand Rapids. This was my 4th year to go. I am glad I live only 40 minutes away. I am able to stay with relatives, so it makes the drive less (and not as early getting up). 

I had a lovely time visiting the quilt exhibits and vendors on the first day. Here are a few of my favorite quilts. These were part of the AQS Ultimate Guild Challenge by Happy Heart Quilters of Louisville, KY. The guild challenged its members to design a flower seed packet of the quilter's choice. They titled it Flower Seed Packets. 

The other days I took classes. 

In Reeze Hanson's class called Curved One-Patch Machine Piecing without Pins I finally learned a method to machine sew curves - and I really did not have to use pins! I discovered that using the AccuCut for all those apple core and clamshell pieces is the way to go. I tried with the acrylic templates and rotary cutter and it was a chore and not accurate. Now to save some money for the system.

These are the apple core pieces I cut out with the acrylic templates and decided to hand sew them because they are not all exactly true to size. The fabric slipped as I cut each side. I know with hand stitching I can tweak them to make them work. I have 35 pairs sewn and 17 more pairs to go--unless I decide to cut more! 

I have been getting Reeze's email newletter for years now. She designs the most wonderful BOM each year. I have not yet made any of them, but have collected the patterns and will be starting one this winter. I wanted to meet Reeze and introduce myself because she is one of the designers involved in the EQ Seasons Row-Along with me and 18 other designers. She is a very nice and lively person.  

She had a lecture titled Inspiration is in the Air.  And what can I say but, "It was inspiring." It got me excited to devote more time to my EQ7 program (I added the EQ Stitch component 2 years ago). I will be looking everywhere for inspiration now!

I took one of her other classes, EQ7 Drawing: Appliqué Blocks and Motifs. I learned techniques and many little tricks to getting the best applique and motif blocks drawn. I actually worked on one the other night where I created the motif in EQ Stitch and was very happy with the result. Now to try it on my embroidery machine. Here is the pic of it:

I have to post a photo of the 5" x 7" mini landscape I made in Lenore Crawford's class on the last day. She calls her technique Mini Blended Fabric Collages. It is a mosic technique. The fabric is cut and repositioned just over the piece next to it. Everyone in the class had a blast...and we all went away with a project we were proud of. Now to mount it.

Do check out the information about the EQ7 Seasons Row Along by clicking the button below.

Find out about all the wonderful rows that are being created for you to download...Free! 

And the giveaways, too. 

There is a Facebook group you can join HERE. Put in a request to join. 

Today is the day!

My Four-in-Art Challenge Reveal

I have belonged to this an online quilting group of 8 quilters for nearly 2 years. 

I am very happy to have been chosen to join the group when they expanded in 2014. 

It has pushed me to try new concepts and techniques, some successfully and others never made it into a blog post. I have communicated with some wonderful and creative people.

Each "new year" (which begins in February) we are given a theme. We are to create a small quilt (12" x 12" is what I have made) every 3 months to interpret that theme. 

This year's theme has been literature. 

I have chosen Children's literature and will be donating my mini quilts to the local library to display in the Children's Area. 

My third quarter reveal is based on the1963 Newberry winning book by Madeleine L'Engle:

A Wrinkle In Time 

This is a science fantasy book for young adult readers. It was written between 1959 and 1960. After a long struggle to get it published, a happy turn of events at a tea party led to Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing it in 1963.

In my quilt piece, I wanted to reference three of the elements in the story. 

The first is the tesseract, which was able to transport the characters on their quest to save Mr. Murphy. 

In my search of the term, I found this from dictionary.com:

• "A line has one dimension, a square has two, a cube has three, and a tesseract has four."
  (Wait for Weight Jack McKenty)
• There is a very good animation of this quotation HERE (at Wikipedia) under the section on Geometry.
• I designed my tesseract with tulle in order that the viewer could see something of this 4-dimensional object on a 2-dimensional plane. The black background suggests space as well as reference to the first line in the book, "It was a dark and stormy night,"
• In my investigations, a tesseract has 8 sides and 16 corners, so to me it is like two open boxes, with each of its corners connected. After designing this, I found reference that all of the edges of the tesseract are the same length; thus, mine is not true to definition. 

Below is a close up of the zig-zag stitching on the tulle. In some sections, there are overlapping pieces of tulle. It was actually quite easy to sew and trim.  

But I must say at times I was seeing an optical illusion!

The next thing I wanted to represent was the three Mrs. (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which) who happen to be supernatural beings who transport the three children through time and space in the tesseract, the action of which is similar to folding time and space like fabric. I used metallic gold thread to stitch their names as it was revealed that Mrs. Whatsit was a former star that exploded in order to fight the darkness. Their names are around the image of a clock face with a wrinkle in it to reference the title of the book. 

And, lastly, the heroine of the story, Meg, discovers in their attempt to save her father (who is trapped on the dark planet) and later her need to save her brother, that it is LOVE that conquers and wins the day. 

I wanted to represent love a little differently than simply placing four letters on my quilt. 

I drew a heart on paper and drew each letter into a section to be made in a different color fabric. The letters were drawn in reverse on fusible. 

I used a zig-zag stitch to hold them all down.

The backing I found while participating in the Row by Row and could not pass it up. 

I knew it would be the right backing for this little quilt. 

I quilted the layers with straight lines radiating from the corner to suggest movement in space.

Thank you for visiting. Comments are always welcome.

Visit the others in the Four-in-Art group to see what they have done for the third reveal of their Literature themes. 

Betty at a Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com

Catherine  at Knotted Cotton

Elizabeth at OPQuilt.com 

Jennifer at Secondhand Dinosaur 

Nancy at  Patchwork Breeze

Rachel at The Life of Riley

Simone at Quiltalicious

Susan at PatchworknPlay

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And to let you know a bit of what is in store in September, I have designed a row for the 

There are 20 talented EQ7 designers

and a boatload of sponsors.

To name a few

 EQ7 - giving the software away to a lucky winner,

Fat Quarter Shop - a $25 gift certificate from each blog.

Aurifil - some beautiful thread packs

There will be batting, patterns, classes....

To see the whole list of sponsors and EQ7 designers,

you can stop by here. 

I hope you plan on joining us.