Day After Black Friday Frenzy Quilt- a New 3 In 1 Block EQ8 Tutorial

Were you a Black Friday shopper this year?  

This has been an enjoyable weekend with family in Kansas City.  I've been trying to get some Christmas shopping done -- which of course meant braving a few stores on Black Friday.  I am finding that if you wait until mid-afternoon the shopping experience is much less stressful.  However I have been thinking about some more crazy Black Friday experiences

Back in my early-adult years, I remember getting up before the crack of dawn to stand in long lines for particularly enticing Black Friday offers. 

The one I remember best is the time I started with a trip to JoAnn Fabrics at 6 am.  The store was a zoo.  Uncle John came with me and graciously  stood in the fabric cutting line for me while I scoured the store for some great buys.  

We were done by 7 am and hurried to Herberger's where they were handing out free cookbooks to the first few hundred customers. It is still one of my favorite cookbooks in my kitchen.   

The cookbooks also had coupons and I managed to score a $100 coupon with which I enjoyed a nice shopping spree. 

​Did you participate in any Black Friday activities this year?  If so, let me know your favorite find in the comments.

My new EQ8 tutorial is an idea that will allow you to decompress after a busy shopping day.  This new quilt design is focused on keeping things simple.

Day After Black Friday Frenzy EQ8 Tutorial

With the busyness of the holiday season now upon us, I am all about easy.  

See how to play the "what if" game as you start with a simple 8 pointed star drawn with EQ8, Design your own corners and then play with a variety of options on the quilt worktable.

Adding pieced borders is an opportunity to to create coordinating blocks using my 3 in 1 concept -- with no additional drawing required.

I started by pulling a new fabric collection for my project. 

The fabric is Christmas Eve by Lella Boutique for Moda.  I am loving the collection of greens, reds and greys.

The fabric images are available in the Stash 2023 Download 1 or you can download a collection of the images from the Moda website. 

​EQ is having their own Black Friday sale with 25% off store-wide through November 30, 2023 which includes their Stash collections. 

Make sure to use the coupon code NOVEMBER when checking out to get your 25% discount. 

EQ8 Stash Link

I started by drafting this 8 pointed star.  It is a block in the EQ8 library (under 9 patch stars).  But I typically find it faster to draft it in EQ8 instead of figuring out EQs naming convention or location for the block in a very large library.

I love this block as it is super easy to piece with my Deb Tucker V Block Trimmer.  I am a fan of the oversized piecing trim down method as it truly gives me my most accurate results.

8 Pointed Star from EQ8 Block Library

I've played with this basic block in the past.  This week I decided to focus on creating a new corner.  

Notice the diagonal with an accent color (red). 

​When I design in EQ8, I always am thinking about construction.  These corner units would be super easy to piece. 

• Create strip sets for each row. 
• Sub-cut them at 1-1/2"
• Piece the rows together.

For the first option, I set up a Horizontal quilt layout.

Set up a 3 x 4 layout with 12" blocks.

​Set alternate coloration of the blocks every other row.

I then experimented with a larger quilter, created by adding an additional column and row and adding some simple borders.

Consider using a stripe from the collection for the binding. 

​Do you see the rotated fabric?

For the next option, I needed two additional blocks.

What makes this super easy is I can create both the blocks, from the main block.  No additional drawing is required.

I am calling this this my "Three Blocks from One" concept.

​Check out the video to see how I did this.

For the final quilt I inserted a new border (where I used the new blocks) and did some modifications of the coloring.

Border #1
Style:  Blocks
4" Size
3 Horizontal and 4 Vertical Blocks in Border

Border #2
Style: Long Horizontal
1" Size

Border #3
Style: Long Horizontal
4" Size

Border #4
Style:  Mitered
1/2" Size

I look forward to seeing what you do with the Day After Black Friday Frenzy blocks.  Feel free to share in the Learning EQ Facebook post.

Day After Black Friday Learning EQ Facebook Post

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Happy quilting.

​Kari

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