It’s time again for another EQ tutorial, this time I’ll do a picture tutorial again, as I haven’t had the time to record and edit anything- and having the house quiet to do it!
I figured I’d do a tutorial on how I designed this kite quilt I recently finished
I was inspired by a scrappy version I saw on an Accuquilt FB group but decided I wanted to do a more “planned” version.
Anyways, in EQ8 I always search for the block I want before I start but searching for kite came up with this
and that’s not what I wanted, but the block is easy to design.
If using Accuquilt dies, the kite shape is exactly half the size of the block’s width, so here with an 8″ block (it’s not 8″ for AQ, but here I just need some easy math) I then drew a line from the 4″ mark and down to the corner and the same on the side line.
I had decided to use purple and green scraps, so here I colored the sides different colors and the kite is an off white.
If you are planning on an even numbered layout, then use this “serendipity- shrink and flip method”
When in the block worktable, click Block>serendipity>shrink and flip block
scroll down to the new block and click the flag options on the side if the block doesn’t look like this.
I planned on using the 3″ finished kite die from the 6″ QUBE set, so I made the blocks 6″ and I chose to keep it baby sized, so I chose 4 horizontal x 5 vertical blocks and then later added 1″ and 3″ borders (It was after I saw how much fabric I had leftover for binding and borders)
Now it’s 32″ x 38″
If you wanted an un-even block amount, you have to do each individual block and rotate them, so then in my case it would be 3″ blocks
Often, if I’m not sure about colors, I use the Randomize wand tool and click on the design, then it shows random colors in the layout and maybe something looks nice, maybe it doesn’t, but it’s still fun and inspirational!
I hope you try both the serendipity tool and randomize wand and have fun!
Great tutorial. I always forget about the reason to use shrink and flip!
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I’d never tried the shrink and flip tool. I didn’t even know it was a ‘thing’. So exciting to find something new on EQ8 (there are probably lot’s of tools that I’m not aware of).
Hi! I’m new to quilting software. Can you recommend a way to familiarize myself with it? Although I use the ProStitcher on my long arm and embroidery software for my embroidery machine, I cannot seem to get the hang of this one! Thanks!