I thought I’d show you my work process in designing a quilt pattern in the program Electric Quilt 8 (EQ8).

I have a feature fabric in greens and teals with a fairly large design. Two of the three fabrics for this quilt are directional (blossom at the top, stems at the bottom). So both the size of the print and the direction of the design need to be considered in the quilt’s design.

Left and middle fabrics are directional, the right hand one is not.

I started out thinking I wanted to make a quilt with 9 patches. But hunting through the block library on EQ8 my eye was drawn to the eight pointed star above. It’s called EQ Default Variable Star. That large central square would really be able to feature the large teal, yellow-green, lavender and orange fabric. So I put that block on my design table.

I still wanted to have some a block that would travel linearly through the pattern. So I chose the simple large half square triangle as my second block.

Well, okay. That works. But I still wanted to see if I could design a quilt with a chaining block. So below is trial number number 2.

I kept the 8 pointed star and added the LeMoyne Single Irish Chain. The chaining is interrupted by a larger central square which I thought be be great for my large feature fabric. I like the idea, and the way the chains bring the eye to the star block. But as I sat and looked at the design, I realized it has an irritating flaw. Can you see what it is?

The squares in the center of the star block and the center of the LeMoyne block are different sizes. It just looks wrong. I thought about redesigning one of the blocks, but wasn’t in the mood to fiddle around with it.

So on to design number 3.

I switched out the LeMoyne Single Irish Chain block for a Double Four Patch Block. That creates a chain that flows in one direction across that quilt. This definitely works.

But I was out of time for the day, so I saved my designs in the program’s Project Sketchbook and called it a day.

My folks had a policy of always looking at a piece of artwork on two different days to be sure they really liked it before they bought it. Something that looks good on an initial impression may not be as great looking at it again. I have no idea how many times they walked away and left something on second look. It would have be fun to know.

I tell you this story because my decision about which design to choose was different when I came back to my work table on another day. Number 2 was still out of the running due to the different size squares in the design. When I finished up the first day, Number 3 was my favorite. It’s a good design and I’m keeping it for another time.

But I ended up choosing design Number 1. Of the 3 designs, it is really going to showcase my large feature fabric. However, I needed to change the layout of the half square triangle blocks in order to keep the flowers on the white fabric upright. I didn’t have enough fabric to have all the half square triangles in the same orientation. But one of the awesome things about EQ8 is that you can rotate the blocks anyway you want. So after a few trials, here’s what I think the quilt will look like.

I think it is going be fun to do some diagonal quilting across the entire quilt.

So there you have it! Quilt Design #1 Variation B is going to the cutting table!