SewCal Red and White Challenge

SewCalGal is hosting A Year of Red & White Quilt Challenges . Have a look at the scheduling HERE

For February this involves designing a red & white quilt. I love designing quilts and also am fortunate enough to have EQ7.  I could have designed many spectacular quilts using a red and white theme, but when I read about it, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

My favourite block, found on one of my many explorations of the Internet, when looking around for older style, traditional quilt blocks that I could draw into the EQ7 program is "An Arrangement of Small Pieces". Once you know the grid it is drawn on, it is fairly simple to redraw any block in EQ7. I often do this and have a number of older style blocks that I place in My Library which can then be used like the blocks that already come with the EQ program.



This block goes back to the The Kansas City Star (1928-1960) and is described as one of the very few quilt blocks that describes in its name what quilting actually is all about. (you can find it at Antique Geometric Quilt Designs  and also in Maggie Malone's 5500 Quilt block Designs, p.38 (with a slight colour variation).  Apart from that I have not seen it anywhere else and have never seen a quilt made of it. Now I found this fascinating and got somewhat stuck on this block, possibly because it looks so plain and unassuming. Playing around with it in EQ7 there are some fantastic variations that one can create using this block. I already posted about this in an earlier post, but apart from a little table runner, never got around to actually making a full sized quilt using this block.

I think this block lends itself perfectly to a two coloured quilt and to emphasize the beauty of this block my virtual quilt is designed with simplicity in mind.

Here it is, my entry to the Red & White Challenge:  An Arrangement Of Small Pieces

An Arrangement Of Small Pieces

The quilt measures 56in x 65in and  I used just one main colour from the Jinny Beyer Palette (one of my favourite designers).  In terms of yardage one would need 2 3/8yd white background fabric, 2 7/8yd dark red tone-on-tone print and 1/4 yd light red small scale print. Now, I realise that not everyone will think that this is just extraordinary, but, hey, we all have our little obsessions and this block appears to be mine.

Have a look what else you can do with this block

This is just one of the many variations that I have come up with using my trusted EQ7 program. The possibilities are truly amazing and I keep coming up with new ones.

Really should knuckle down and actually piece my Arrangement Of Small Pieces together, maybe then I will get this block out of my system











Linking up to SewCalGal's A Year of Red & White Challenges The event is open until March 23rd, so there is plenty of time for you to come up with your own design to enter...in any case, make sure you head over to SewCalGal for the remainder of the time to have a look at the entries. I am so looking forward to this.

Karin