Drafting a Foundation Pieced Snowflake

Snowflake 6

Foundation Pieced Snowflake by Kari Schell

Many of you participated in a webinar shortly after Christmas, where I shared how to create applique snowflakes.  This used a process similar to how we cut paper snowflakes as a child.  It was a great opportunity to become acquainted with some of the tools within the applique worktable in EQ8.

However I know that not everyone is into applique.  So I decided to challenge myself to take one of those starting snowflake sections and turn it into a foundation piecing friendly block.  We will use a similar process in that we will start by creating a foundation friendly wedge and then use clone and rotate to create and place the other wedges.

This process is slightly more complex than the applique as cloning and rotating large segments have a few challenges in EasyDraw.

Snowflake Wedge for Tracing

Here is the snowflake wedge that was used for tracing in the video.  Feel free to download it to your computer and import it in an EQ project file, so you can trace the image as well.

Note the the wedge image (which includes some white space) should measure 2" x 3".  If it does not, go ahead and resize it in the image worktable before using importing it to your EasyDraw block.

True confession.  My first attempt at this technique was pretty seamless.  However, once I started recording, I experienced a couple of issues. 

• First the dreaded Polygon error.  Not to be deterred, I decided to demonstrate how to fix those Polygon errors in EasyDraw.  (The technique won't necessarily fix every Polygon error -- but definitely is worth checking for those with cloned segments.)
• Then I had a problem with bleeding when coloring the block.  So I decided to share with you how to problem solve and fix that as well.

As a result, this really is not a "beginner" tutorial.  But I think it will be useful for those that are wanting to draft more complex foundation blocks.

Here is my proposed sectioning for the two sections for each wedge

Click here for the pdf download of the wedge segments (six inch size). if you would like to piece the block.  Make sure to print out 6 copies for each block.

Within Tech Know Quilters, there is a full month of classes on drafting your own foundation patterns using Electric Quilt 8.  Here are some of the projects from that class.

Membership in Tech Know Quilters opens a few times a year (and the enrollment period is typically very short).  

Join the TKQ Wait List Now

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Happy quilting.

​Kari

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