Sunday, July 10, 2016

Designing a Medallion Style quilt in EQ7

I can't believe it is the 10th of July already, this summer is just zooming past.  This month Island Batik is partnering in the 25th anniversary of Electric Quilt - they will be giving out a copy of the EQ7 software, so make sure you enter for a chance to win that, as well as entering on the Electric Quilt website for a bundle of Island Batik fabric!

I thought I would share some tips for designing a medallion style quilt this month (my Christmas In July challenge for Island Batik is a medallion quilt).  EQ7 has a variety of border styles that make this a fun and creative process.

First you need to start out with your quilt layout.  I just wanted one 12 inch block as my center, so after adding a few choices into my sketchbook I started a new quilt, using a horizontal layout.  I then clicked the first tab (layout) and after selecting 1 block horizontal and vertical set my block size at 12 inches.

 Next step is to go to the second tab (borders) and start selecting your borders.  Your layout will probably start with one border already present.  


As you can see, there are quite a few border styles to choose from.  It's a lot of fun to click on each one to see what happens.  There are additional options for the different border styles as well, you can usually adjust the number of units in the border, and the width of your border.

To see how the block will look with your center block you click the Layer 1 tab.  Color the border just as you would a block.  If you use the control key you can color all the units on each side at once - that makes it quick and easy.
I used this as my second border because I liked the way it reflected the triangles in the block.  Now you can go back to the border tab and add another border by just clicking add.  I wanted to make this border a plain border with corner blocks and knew that I would have to cut the strips at 3 inches, so selected a 2.5 inch border with cornerstones - simple and easy!
The next border I wanted to add would be a pieced border.  I chose Big and Little Points out for this one, but once it was colored decided that I wanted this border to be the final one and wanted to add an accent border inside of it.
So I went back to the borders tab, clicked insert and added my border:
I was happy with this layout, and after a bit of trial and error in adjusting to the sizes I was able to get that last border to have pieces that were square and easy to rotary cut and sew.  I'm not going to go through all of that right now, but I worked it out by selecting the border pieces after I colored them and using the print menu to see what the rotary cutting measurements were.  I found that by making the accent border 3/4 of an inch and the outer border 3.75 inches that the angles and measurements worked out perfectly.  If you can't adjust your measurements to work like this, you can also use the print menu to print out templates and cut your pieces that way as well.

And here is my finished design!  You'll have to wait to see the actual quilt until later this week, I have to finish sewing it.

I hope you've enjoyed this overview of how to add borders to make a medallion quilt on EQ7.  I love all the possibilities of working with the different border options.  You can also add blocks to the borders - which make the options infinite, as well as super challenging to sew!  Here is a fun design I came up using the same borders, but a different block in the center, and playing with setting blocks in the border patches:


I could go on playing with this for hours!

For more ideas about using EQ7 make sure you check out Quilt Shop Gal's Blog - she has been linking up several bloggers on the 10th of each month as we celebrate Electric Quilt's 25th anniversary - and make sure you use the #EQ25 on social media - I was a winner for their May social media giveaway!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Pamela, I love the look of you Medallion Quilt and look forward to seeing the finished project. PS. I can get lost for hours playing with all the possibilities with EQ too!

QuiltShopGal said...

I've grown quite partial to Medallion Quilts, but not yet completely comfortable with designing them in EQ7. Great tutorial. Thanks for sharing and helping others. And, what a fun way to help EQ celebrate their 25th Anniversary.

QuiltShopGal
www.quiltshopgal.com