Block Alphabet

This week found me needing a pieced alphabet for a future project.  Ideally all my letters will be the same size which will make it very usable in a variety of quilt blocks.  A 3 x 5 size seemed ideal after a lot of looking at a variety of block letters on the Internet.

I started by drafting a couple of my pieced letters using EasyDraw, but then realized I wanted a bit more flexibility as I created the alphabet and applied what I learned in drafting one block to another block.  Ideally I wanted to be able to draft the entire alphabet on one page.  

Within EQ8, one way to approach this is to use the One Patch Quilt Layout as graph paper.  This gives us flexibility to color (and un-color) the graph paper squares during the design process. 

​By the second letter I realized that I needed to be able to add piecing to some of the squares in order to differentiate some of the letters.  I didn't want the "B" to look like the number "8" or the "D" to look like the "O".  To add the additional detail, I created a few very simple 2 inch blocks in EasyDraw and added them to Layer 2 on the Quilt worktable.

I was able to do the entire alphabet with only 6 blocks (in addition to the 2 inch squares).  And the blocks would be a breeze to do with the Deb Tucker rulers:

• Tucker Trimmer for half square triangles
• V Block Tool for the v block and half v block
• Wing Clipper for the flying geese units

If you would like to purchase any of the rulers from me, use code TUCKER when checking out for a 10% discount on all rulers in my store.  Offer good through August 7, 2022 -- while supplies last.

Once I had fine tuned the alphabet, I was then able to trace the images to create my 3" x 5" EasyDraw blocks.  You may not even need to trace if you print out a copy of your quilt showing the quilt patch lines.

For the EasyDraw blocks, I thought through the easiest way to piece each of the blocks and eliminated some of the extra lines.  I also want to make sure I don't have any inside corners that need to be pieced.  Note the "A" block can be pieced in horizontal rows that are then combined together.  

Watch the entire process in the EQ8 video tutorial.

You could copy my alphabet -- or create one of your own.  Feel free to set your own rules.

I am looking forward to seeing your alphabet and maybe even a quilt that incorporates some words in it.  Feel free to post pictures in the Learning EQ Facebook Group.

Learning EQ Facebook Post for Block Alphabet

Have a fantastic week.

Happy quilting.

​Kari
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