Irish Chain Quilts

Scroll down for a tutorial for those new to Electric Quilt 8 on drafting a modern Irish Chain quilt.

Tech Know Quilters Irish Chain Challenge

I challenged the Master's Group within Tech Know Quilters to design an Irish Chain quilt.  Here were some of the early submissions. 
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A great group of quilts to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

Pat Harkin

Julie Pedersen

Rick Danner I immediately think of Beleek China. Clean minimalist design. For me, these quilts would get amped up with the quilting. I just got a huge set of asymmetrical curve long arm rulers that can create some delicious interlocking designs that would really set these quilts on fire.

Joyce Drenth In browsing Pinterest, I happened upon an interesting crossover Irish Chain design and decided that I wanted to attempt to figure out its layout.

Kristy Goodin Soard when I read the words crossing blocks, my thoughts immediately went to a darling rosebud block I had seen on Pinterest.

Kristy Goodin Soard

Julie Pedersen designed the block on the right and then played with different rotations and an on point layout.  A very unique approach to a very traditional block.

Julie Pedersen

Julie Pedersen

Julie Pedersen

Curryanne Hostetler

Suzanne Golden

Suzanne Golden

Barbara Bobbitt

Pat Harkin (an Edyta Sitar pattern)

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Draft Your Own Modern Irish Chain Quilt

It can sometimes be a challenge to figure out how to take a very traditional block and make it modern.  Here is my approach.  This would be a great project for those just starting with Electric Quilt.

​I started by drafting a very basic Irish Chain block.  You will probably be able to find this block in the EQ Library -- or if not there, in BlockBase.  However, I think it can be faster to draft it using EasyDraw.

I decided to color the block using some neutral fabrics in the EQ8 Default Palette.

7 x 7 Irish Chain Drawn in EQ by Kari Schell

Then I used Serendipity with the Clip and Flip option to create two variations of the block.  With Clip and Flip, EQ takes the upper left quadrant of the block and creates different rotations of that quadrant in a four patch setting.

Upper Left Quadrant for Clip and Flip Option

Clip and Flip Option

Clip and Flip Option 2

I then set the three blocks in an on point layout.  Note that the setting triangles and corners used the second Clip and Flip option.

Modern Irish Chain Quilt in Neutrals by Kari Schell

I then used Benartex' Geo Pop Collection by Christa Watson to recolor the quilt.  Geo Pop is the free Fabric of the Month download that you can still download from Do You EQ.

Modern Irish Chain Quilt with Geo Pop fabrics by Kari Schell.

This is a great beginner project for someone new to Electric Quilt 8.   Please share your quilts in the Learning EQ Facebook Group.

Happy quilting.

​Kari

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