Published – Cookie Cat

Posted in Finished Projects, Home Accessories, Published by lorimillerdesigns

MEOW! Cookie Cat is here, my latest quilt made to celebrate my sweet kitty, Cookie.

You can find this fun little quilt in the March 2018 issue of American Quilter Magazine. This magazine is published by the American Quilt Society (AQS).

Note: If any of you would like to join AQS in February, you will get access to the March digital issue as soon as you join, plus you can get 6 additional issues, a full year, in print. Also, if you join and log into americanquilter.com, all AQS members have digital access to ALL American Quilter magazines back to 2013. I just happen to be a member, so I though I would share.

Here is the real Cookie Cat, he loves to help me with my quilting.

As usual, I designed this cutie with Electric Quilt design software. It makes the process easy and I had quite a few iterations on this block until I got it where I liked it.

I started quilting at my cottage in Northern Michigan. I have a well used Featherweight Singer up there and it pieces a quilt quite nicely.

I generously received cotton solid fabric from American Made Brand to make this sweet quilt. The pieces are sized at five inches so they are charm square friendly too.

There are two variations in the colors for the blocks. These are large 18″ blocks. I love a large block, easy to sew, easy to have a large quilt quickly.

Here is my fancy light box at the cottage. Yes, its a window from the second story, so I have a lovely pine tree backdrop. I just taped the template to the window and then moved the block to where I wanted the face and taped the block to the window. Then I traced with a water soluble marker. Once I had the face on, I hand embroidered the whiskers. The little nose is a piece of fleece.

I went a little crazy with the quilting. I wanted to try out my Babylock Jazz on a larger quilt. It may look like a jumble, but the large throat made it easy to do free motion quilting and the walking foot quilting.

Here you can get a better idea of all of the quilting. I made the tiny swirls so tiny around the kitty, that took me forever. Next time, I will make those babies just a bit bigger to get it done sooner. I cant complain too much, I do love all that texture it creates, especially since the kitty is so basic.

I have enough scraps to make a baby quilt with just four blocks. That just might be a great idea if you want to try this block but not make a twin size quilt. Just one block would make a super cute pillow too.

Happy Stitching!

21Oct2016

Tutorial – Charming Baby Quilt

Posted in EQ Mini, Finished Projects, Gift Ideas by lorimillerdesigns

This tutorial introduces my first project designed with EQ Mini Software by The Electric Quilt Company. Made with pre-cut charm squares, this first easy beginner project is the Charming Baby Quilt. I am pleased to be blogging for Electric Quilt hosting EQ Mini Friday Fun and sharing how to design in EQ Mini. In addition, on my blog here, I will be sharing tutorials to take the design from idea to finished stitched project.

EQ Mini is the new scaled down, simpler version of EQ7 quilt design software. This program was created for quilters who are just getting started using software for quilt design. EQ Mini will help you create, edit, share, and print patterns and yardage for your quilt designs. I had the good fortune to beta test EQ Mini and I was very impressed with the easy flow and friendly beginner aspects of the software.

I love the colored step by step tabs that let you easily work to create and edit a design. And even though it is a Mini version of the Electric Quilt 7 software, it is still robust enough to offer a ton of design possibilities. It contains a block library of 300 pieced and appliqué blocks that can be set in 4 layout styles, there are 8 different border styles and a fabric library of over 3500 scanned fabrics to use to make your designs exactly how you want them. Thats my EQ Mini spiel! Let’s move on to the tutorial!

Charming Baby Quilt

Finished size is 40 1/2″ x 40 1/2″.

Materials

1 package of coordinating 5″ charm squares (you will need 32)
1 yd for center of quilt
1/2 yard for small border and binding
1 1/4 yard for backing
1 1/4 yard batting

Directions

Cut Fabric:

Center Square

1 — 31 1/2 ″ x 31 1/2 ″ square

Inner Border

2 — 1″ x 31 1/2″ strips
2 — 1″ x 33 1/2″ strips

Outer Border

32 – 5″ Charm squares

Sew:

Sew the 31 1/2″ inner border strips to opposite sides of the center 31 1/2″ square. Press seams.
Sew the 33 1/2″ inner border strips to the top and bottom of the center square. Press seams.
Take your charm squares and arrange them around the quilt until you get an arrangement you like.
Sew together seven squares for each side. Attach the sewn strips of seven squares to each side of the quilt center unit. Press seams.
Sew together the remaining nine squares for the top and bottom of the quilt. Attach the sewn strips of 9 squares to the top and bottom of the quilt center unit. Press seams.
Your quilt top is pieced. Yay!
Prepare the quilt backing. You may need to piece part of the fabric on one side so that it is larger than your quilt top if needed.
Make a quilt sandwich with the backing face down, then the batting, then your quilt top face up.
Pin baste the quilt layers together.
Quilt as desired.
Here is my super secret method I used to mark this quilt. The smaller shapes were just smaller lids I found in the kitchen.
I tried quilting some large clamshells and stitched them with my walking foot. I like the rainbow look and it echos some of the designs in the charm squares.
Finally, add the binding. I used 2 1/2″ strips to make my binding. Here is the finished quilt in my sunroom, the lighter colors are dappled sunlight coming in the room.

Variation Suggestions

Mix it up and try a cute nursery print for the center and solid pre-cut 5″ squares for the outside.
Use that blank space in the center to personalize the quilt with baby’s name in embroidery or with applique letters.

This is a quick and easy baby quilt that you could easily put together in a diligent weekend. I really liked the idea of using a pack of charm squares that I already had in my stash. I would love to see pictures of your charming baby quilt. Just tag me on instagram @lormillerdesigns.

Looking for the EQ Mini Design Instructions? You can find them here: EQ Mini Friday Fun: Charming Baby Quilt

2Feb2016

My NY Beauty Mini for the EQ25 and MMF Challenge

Posted in Finished Projects by lorimillerdesigns

If you had not heard, The Electric Quilt Company is celebrating their 25th Anniversary this year. They are having contests and giveaways all year long. For January, they issued a challenge to create a mini quilt with Michael Miller Fabrics. I happened to have a Charm pack of 5″ squares of Michael Miller Modern Basics. I grabbed some white polkadot fabric at my local quilt shop and started planning. I decided I wanted to try a New York Beauty block because I had never made one of those and this fun little quilt is the result.

I started this adventure by going to my Electric Quilt 7 software and searching for New York Beauty quilt block. I found a fancier block which I edited to simplify it a bit. Then I sized the block down to a 4 1/2″ finished block so I could use my 5″ square charm pack. My EQ7 software made it so easy to size it perfectly and I could print out template pieces and the paper piecing foundation pattern as well.

Here are 3 charms I started with.

I used the templates to cut out the pieces and as a guide to overcut the paper pieced components.

Here are all the pieces after I have finished the paperpieced center and getting ready to tackle those little curves. I just pinned the middle and sewed out from the center a few stitches at a time. I stopped to adjust about every 3 – 4 stitches.

Here is the little block all together before I trimmed.

I made a total of nine blocks. They were really pretty fun and one you got going they went pretty fast. I really like this pattern.

Last step, I used free motion quilting to add some contrast to the squares. I just love the little zig zag in the center white curved piece.

My little cutie did not win any prizes, but I did learn alot about editing a quilt block in Electric Quilt 7 and how to sew curved seams. I think that is the best happy circumstance from participating in a quilt challenge, you get to learn something new!