Create a New Block From The Historic Louisiana Block using EQ8 and Custom Set

Every month I offer a challenge opportunity to my Tech Know Quilter Masters members.  These are my more advanced students.  The challenges give them an opportunity to expand their Electric Quilt 8 skills -- but more importantly their design skills.  The members have mentioned that I should participate in the challenges as well.

The challenge I provided them last month was to create a quilt based on the Louisiana block.  I pulled the block from BlockBase+, a program from the Electric Quilt Company that compiles over 4000 quilt blocks from Barbara Brackman's Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns book.

Here is a post I did on BlockBase+ a year ago.

Barbara Brackman noted that the block Louisiana was first published in Hearth and Home magazine about a century ago when the magazine asked readers to mail in blocks named for their home states. The BlockBase+ # is 1335.

Louisiana Block from BlockBase+

No worries if you don't own BlockBase+ (yet).  This is a super easy block to draft directly in Electric Quilt 8 and I will share how in this video.

But wait there's more!

For the challenge, I decided to play with a variation of the block.  I was intrigued by the rectangle patch in the block and was curious what it would look like if I shared that space with another copy of the same block.  In the video, you will see how to play the "what if" game and design your new block using custom set in the quilt worktable.

Here is the idea I ended up pursuing.

Louisiana Variation Designed in Custom Set

From there you will learn how to take your custom set design and use it as a tracing image.  Along with a fast way to draft the new block in EasyDraw.  You will also learn how to figure out how the best size and snap points for the new block.

Here is my Louisiana variation from the video.

Louisiana Variation

Morris Meadow Collection

If you don't have the Morris Meadow collection in EQ8, you can obtain a copy on DoYouEQ.com  This is a free download that you can install on your computer.  And then access in EQ8.

Link to Morris Meadow Fabric Download

I would love to see your Louisiana block.  (FYI for the TKQ Masters members -- no need to share ahead of my post next week as I plan to post your quilts at that time.)  ​?

Learning EQ Facebook Group Post for Louisiana Block

Check back next week to see a quilt using this block.  Spoiler alert -- there just may be an additional change to this block.  And learn how to use elements from your block as a guide for your pieced borders as well.

There will also be a show of the quilts Tech Know Quilter members designed for their challenge.  I've looked at them and can say with a great deal of confidence that they will amaze you with their designs.

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Happy quilting.

​Kari

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