Kari Schell On Point Quilter Blog

Quick Lone Star Quilt

8/24/2019

Creating a lone star quilt design in Electric Quilt 8 is super simple. This quilt has only two blocks (and one comes from the Electric Quilt library). And the other can be drafted in under a minute -- promise!

Then use a current fabric collection to color the quilt. I used the free fabric of the month collection for August 2019 on the Do You EQ Website. The collection is Rosemary Cottage by Andover. Have you found this collection in your favorite quilt store?

Here is the quilt from the video.

Quick Lone Star Quilt created by Kari Schell using Electric Quilt 8

I would love to see pictures of your lone star quilt (either in EQ or made with "real" fabric.)

Shoot for the Stars with EQ8

Are you just getting started with Electric Quilt 8 and need some help?

Shoot for the Stars is designed to get you started with Electric Quilt 8 through training delivered straight to your inbox. This series includes 14 short (i.e.. 5-10 minute) videos delivered over the course of a month allowing you to learn the basics of this complex program in bite size increments.

The class is currently on sale for $35 (regular $50). Join now.

Purchase Shoot for the Stars with EQ8 for $35

Happy quilting.

Kari

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There is No Place Like Home

8/17/2019

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Check out some of the latest challenge submissions by Tech Know Quilter Master members.

Then scroll down to learn how to create a school house quilt using EQ8. Just in time for back to school.

There is No Place Like Home

A couple of months ago we added a level in Tech Know Quilters for more advanced users. This group is given an opportunity to focus more on their own projects and designs, while still receiving support and encouragement.

During July, this group was challenged to create a block or quilt around the theme Home. Here are the results from the challenge.

Adrienne Quinlan I came across this picture by John Kelly of the bridge in my fathers home town of Killaloe in Ireland. I loved the shadows. I divided each of the elements into 4 and these each measure 16in square, the small squares measure 1in so I should be able to make them bargello style. This version measures 72in square including the borders.

Wanda Hizer This is the Row by Row I designed for our local quilt shop a year or so ago. The theme was Home Sweet Home. I also wrote and diagrammed the pattern for them. I've done all their Rows since 2016 and I design several block of the month programs for them, too. This picture is the actual pieced row. The big chicken is an actual landmark and is a KFC restaurant.

Joyce Drenth I had been planning to do a Birds of a Feather Flock Together family heritage quilt with a modern flair. So I drafted some blocks prior to this challenge. I have since changed my mind about the ancestry plan but I have many birds already stitched. Perhaps this Home Sweet Home quilt will allow me to use them and have a cute little quilt after all.

Caroline Block

Kristy Goodin Soard When I hear the word "home," I inevitably envision my forever home... Heaven. I chose to represent this feeling with a cherub. The photo that inspired me came from a cherub on a tombstone.

Kathy Autry I created a quick block of a asymmetrical house and placed it and a Deb Tucker block into a irregular grid quilt from EQ. My house was designed as a 6 x12 and when placed in other size blocks it became even more distorted. So this is my House of Mirror's Quilt.

Susan Sorensen I'm making a wedding quilt for my assistant's daughter, I don't know her well, so it has been a real challenge which I have been pondering since January. This challenge has been a real motivator. Her favorite color is olive green, not something I would ordinarily use except as an accent color, if ever. And the wedding is now only 4 months away, so I have to limit the complexity of the blocks. I designed about 10 quilts for this project, but when the mother of the bride saw this one in EQ she said this is the one. I plan to use a several tone on tone green and blue fabrics for the main half rectangle triangles and a variety of low volume fabrics for the background, some will be half rectangle triangles. I'll quilt more of the triangle shapes into the background. Have EQ designs with and without 1 inch sashing, will decide about sashing after some of the blocks are on the design wall.

Holly Wilson My mom would say, "home is where you hang your hat". Thought I would make a block with this in mind. Clip art helps with coat rack. and hats. Had to recall how to add the text.

Sharon Osborne I hope mine is legal since I did design this a few months back but never showed it. I was involved in a "Home" Challenge with another group I belong to and this is what I designed. I'm from Colorado so that is the reason for the Colorado flag.. Trees for the mountains and earth for our big home. □

Dorothy Ilgner the inspiration for my Home-Quilt came from a photo of my cat sitting on the windowsill. she was a stray and I rescued her in the middle of winter. She is happy with her new home but the best thing is the bowl of food.

Joy Hegglund Mountains, water trees and flowers make home..

Marlene Steimel This design was inspired by a water color piece Heaven Migration by Ginger Noe, a friend. The Background is a manipulated photo of a nebula taken by NASA.I don't feel I am done with it yet.

Sarah B. started with Bauhaus Strings from Modern Quilts 2. With a few changes (coloring) I did a landscape house quilt. It just amazes me that combining different applications from different lessons and come up with still another quilt.

Mary Landon Mine is super simple, but it was a good way to reinforce the custom set lessons. I have been wanting to make one like this to use up scraps, and I think this will be really easy.

Julie Pedersen I made the house block and the heart is from the EQ library.

Curryanne Hostetler This is a quilt I did for my daughter.

Kathy Autry This is a quilt that I just finished FMQ on this month . Now I just need to do the binding. It is a Xmas gift for my grandaughter who just decorated her bedroom around Artic Wolf theme. I went back to Kari's classes on using a panel and then put it into EQ and started designing other blocks in the custom setting. I used a Deb Tucker quilt "Rangeley Wall Quit" as the start of my design and put two of her star blocks into my quilt. I love to do FMQ so I put in lots of negative space and created my own designs in those blocks. I did a lot of FMQ on the panel hoping to give depth to the picture. I used Hobbs wool and quilters dream for batting to help give the panel a trapunto look.

Back to School

Many parts of our country are already sending kids back to school. And if the kids aren't back, the teachers are probably busy preparing for their new classes. This quilt is in honor of teachers and school workers.

It is a two color red and white quilt -- so super simple to color. And a fun quilt to piece once the drafting is done.

Here is the school house quilt from the video. The quilt finishes 31" x 29".

EQ8 Drawing Blocks

Would you like to learn more about drawing your own blocks using Electric Quilt 8?

Learn the fundamentals of block drawing.

If want to draw your own blocks in EQ8, this is the book for you! Experienced EQ educator, Kari Schell, takes you step-by-step through each of the drawing styles available in EQ8. You'll learn skills for both pieced and applique drawing while filling your Sketchbook with beautiful blocks! From drawing a simple nine patch to creating a beautiful floral applique wreath, this book will take your drawing skills to the next level!

Price: $29.95

Purchase EQ8 Drawing Blocks Book

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Farmers Market

8/10/2019

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I love going to the Farmer's Market this time of the year. The fresh veggies are a real treat. My trip to our local Farmers Market inspired the quilt for this blog post.

The medallion layout with four pieced baskets and the border were designed in a previous blog post.

If you missed the post, you can locate it here.

Sewing Basket Medallion by Kari Schell

This week we will add fruit and veggies to our baskets. All the applique elements came from the Electric Quilt library -- so no drawing skills are required for this quilt.

Once the applique was added to the medallion block, it needed to be resized and rotated and layered under parts of the basket.

How to do that is covered in this free video tutorial.

Here is the quilt from the video. I used Twilight Chic from Island Batik to color the quilt. This fabric collection was one of the free Fabric of the Month downloads from Do You EQ.

Farmers Market by Kari Schell

What are your favorite fruits and vegetables?

Shoot for the Stars with EQ8

Purchase Shoot for the Stars with EQ8

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Sewing Basket Medallion

8/3/2019

4 Comments

I had my second cataract surgery yesterday. At my doctors visit this morning I was back to 20/25 with the expectation to get to 20/20. And I am working on the computer without glasses! This is the first time in many years. I am so thankful for modern medical advances.

My world has become so much brighter. I am looking forward to getting back to quilting -- which had become somewhat frustrating with the reduced clarity in my vision.

Special thanks to Sherry Perry and Diane Rose who threaded by sewing machine needle when working with mono-filament thread during my last quilting retreat. Quilting friends are the greatest. Maybe I will be able to return the favor next year.

Tree Wall Quilter created by Kari Schell (design source unknown)

One of the things I was enjoying this morning was this quilt I made eons ago. I am not sure if it was a purchased pattern or an adaption of something I saw. But I loved how the four on point blocks came together for this medallion style quilt.

For this weeks tutorial I decided to play with a different on point block from the EQ library and create a new version of this this quilt. And I did this without using Custom Set. Can you guess how?

Here is the quilt from the video. I used the free fabric of the month collection from Electric Quilt to color the quilt. The fabric collection is Icicle by Kathy Engle for Island Batik.

For fun consider trying this with a different on point block. I would love to see pictures of your design.

Shoot for the Stars with EQ8

Are you just getting started with Electric Quilt 8 and need some help?

Shoot for the Stars is designed to get you started with Electric Quilt 8 through training delivered straight to your inbox. This series includes 14 short (ie. 5-10 minute) videos delivered over the course of a month allowing you to learn the basics of this complex program in bite size increments.

The class is currently on sale for $35 (regular $50). Join now.

Purchase Shoot for the Stars with EQ8

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Tech Know Quilters July 2019 Showcase

7/27/2019

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I love this time of the month. I am able to go back and revisit all the awesome projects created by Tech Know Quilter members during the previous month. The hard part is figuring out what to include in this post -- as this is such an incredibly talented group of designers.

Sign Me Up for the Tech Know Quilters Wait List

Apply What You Learned Challenge for June

At the end of each month, Tech Know Quilter's members are challenged to share a block or quilt that demonstrates what they have learned during the last month. Some will add a personal touch to a lesson or series of lessons. Others will create a block or quilt from scratch -- which really cements the concepts being taught.

Holly Wilson personal application of scalloped border

Wanda Hizer Learning a lot about designing borders. Here is my design using the Eight Pointed Star Border.

Sandra Roybal Advanced Border Class

Nancy Messuri I was in the Mixed and Matched Medallions class and decided to go wild using what I learned in Lesson 10, Make Mine Modern. I sure had some fun!

Linda Carlson I took the Optical Illusion Class in June and LOVED IT! The first photo is the Star quilt we made.

Linda Carlson This Spiral Ball was also created in the Optical Illusions class. I especially liked the gradated fabric illusion, too.

Linda Carlson My third quilt utilized the Magic Triangle block we created, then made it into a Wreath.

Marlene Steimel In the advanced borders class we did prairie points. I decided to try putting them in the round.

Curryanne Hostetler This quilt was the one I made for my daughter, Tabitha. It is a block I created . The block was not a star. It was created from putting the blocks together.

Curryanne Hostetler block

Curryanne Hostetler quilt back

Kristy Goodin Soard In Advanced Borders Class Lesson 12 we learned how to use elements from the block to create a coordinated border design. I used portions of the main block's applique to carry over into the mitered borders. I mitered all three borders so they could be strip pieced then mitered all at the same time. I also created a flange incorporated into the binding. I did try the randomize tool to map to fabrics, but chose the solids as they provided the more traditional look I had hoped for.

Denise Mohler This is what I learned from Lesson 11 in Easy Draw this month...I love the arcs...so much fun....

Carole Fox I was in Mix & Match Medaillon. I used what I learned with the edit tool and specially partition and stagger in the following New York Beauty. I also enhanced the spikes in the center blocks with little round spot of appliqué.Some of the fabrics featured were from my scanned stash (from the first month" Working with fabrics"). All in all I put a little bit of all I learned so far in that project.

Julie Pedersen This is my Advanced Border Designs Quilt. I used techniques that were used in the lessons for creating the blocks for the borders.

Debbi Treusch I had the intro to applique class in June. I started with an image to trace the applique motif block. Then I added a frame block from the library that coordinated very well with mine. I set them into a quilt with 2 auto borders and then recolored the quilt to my liking. Kari Schell you'll probably notice that I seem to like checkerboard borders. □□ I like the vibrant colors and elegant look of this quilt.

Dorothee Ilgner In June I was in the Advances Borders Class. I also reproduced a quilt by Mary Schaffer called 'Prairie Queen', which was based on an older quilt from the nineteenth century. I decided to add prairie points to that quilt.

Dorothee Ilgner I was able to finish a layout for a mariners compass quilt also. I started it some time ago but got stuck. In Karis Help Session from early July was a helpful hint about using easy draw instead of poly draw for the compass. That put me on the right track - thank you, Kari.

Joan McMullin I completed this quilt this month using what I had learned in my first two classes -- importing fabric photos, and EasyDraw. The center of the quilt is the Space Quilt from embroideryonline.com. This was all new to me and a lot of fun. Thank you, Kari, for your great instructions.

Joan McMullin Space Quilt top

Joyce Drenth n the Advanced Border Class I learned many tidbits of helpful information that I added in my notes section for the each lesson. One time saver was coloring one block in the main layout and adding it to the sketchbook. Less recoloring needed thereafter. After lesson 11, I decided to draw a more detailed ribbon border to add to a horizontal layout collection of EQ blocks. Loved this month's lessons, Kari.

Mary Landon Challenge

Barbara Bobbitt I really enjoyed the Intro to Applique!

Mary Landon Here is my Gee's Bend inspired quilt. This is a copy of Martha Jane Pettway's quilt. I hope to make something unique later today. This was a challenge for me, trying to make the lines wonky.

Rick Danner Gees Bend Challenge lright. I did it. My experiment was to create fabric from fabric--ie, utilizing every scrap of fabric to create larger pieces of fabric from which patches are cut and then sewn together. I fabricated 12X18 pieces of "fabric" from "scraps" in a polydraw block then translated those images into fabric and used them to color the block in Easy Draw. I think this honors the ethic of the women of Gee's bend who did not have whole yard goods with which to work.

Wanda Jewell Boxer Rescue Quilt Option 1

Wanda Jewell Boxer Rescue Quilt Option 2

Wanda Jewell This is one of the classes that I was really interested in taking. I design Boston Terrier and Boxer Blocks for my Rescue Quilts that I donate to different Boxer and Boston Terrier Rescues that I am friends with from my rescue days. I often draft a block from a photo of a dog by hand on paper, then use that design to draw out my templates. Using EQ to draw and then being able to print templates will hopefully make my designs faster from concept to actually putting them into a block. Although it looks like I am gonna have a learning curve before I can get them to look really good like my hand drawn ones do.

Anyway, the block I designed for this month’s challenge is NOT from a photograph. It is from me using the shape tools and tweeking the shapes into the shapes I wanted them to be. It was a lot harder than it looks. If you do a close up on the eyes, I think I did a really great job with them, The shape of the head and ears, not so much, but I think they will get better with practice. I need to figure out how to make the legs look better too. But everything takes practice so… practice, practice, practice will be my mantra until I get it down pat.

This month’s quilt uses the vine blocks that we learned in your Intro to Applique Class that I deleted and inserted modified flowers and leaves until I was happy with them. I did one vine with just leaves as I had put 2 flowers in the other ones and I didn’t want it to be too crowded. I am very happy with the way it turned out. I even got some of the leaves to overlap the inner border that we made in the block.

I placed the Boston Terrier that I made in a Churn Dash block. My Granny always called that one Hole in the Barn Door. He is off center on purpose as a Boston would never lay right in the middle of the design, they would be at a crazy angle.

Here is my Boston in a Barn Door Quilt. I am very pleased with it since I did not think that I would be able to do a Boston Terrier that looked good. I think he looks pretty doggone good for a first time drawing on EQ. 😊 Thank you so much for teaching me how to do this. I am hoping that the intermediate Applique lesson isn’t too far away. Then on to the next advanced one after that. I can’t wait to be able to whip out applique quilts on EQ8 with the precision that some of the ladies in past Challenges have done.

I can’t decide which of these 2 I like the best, so I am sending them both to you. 😊

Wanda Jewell - Quilt in EQ for Howie Dowie

Wanda Jewell Howie Dowie quilt ready to trim.

Wanda Jewell Howie Dowie block and photo

Other EQ Designs and Quilts by TKQ Members

After pulling the submissions for the challenge, I enjoy going through the other posts from the last month in the TKQ private Facebook group. This is an incredibly talented group of quilters and here are a few of my favorite pictures shared last month.

Would you like to join the community? Tech Know Quilters membership is currently closed -- however there is a wait list so that you can be notified the next time it opens up.

Sign Me Up for the Tech Know Quilters Wait List