I dream of houses.
I dream of houses with quilt blocks on their sides, or quilty houses I can make any size.
This started when I was asked to help beta test for BlockBase+ and began to see some possibilities of putting a block within a block. So I thought I would share how I did this. (News about the giveaway is at the end.)

One way to export their images is by SVG, which means Scalable Vector Graphic. That means I can take this image and scale it (change the size) and everything will stay in proportion. I about fell over in happiness when I found out this was available in BlockBase+. That means I can take out lines, add lines, take out and add shapes, all using the basic image from BB+. So I did some of that.

So take one house, add a Double X (using the Brackman ID number to help you find it), and combine them:

Now I have a Shoo-Fly House.

Here’s my Ohio Star House.

Last is the Eight-Pointed Star House.

Combine them all and you have a house-warming gift for a friend or a small wallhanging for yourself (depending on what size you make your basic house and their blocks). If you don’t have a digital design program, change that section of the house by making your block, sashing it on top and fitting it into the space where the two front windows are.

I worked up what I call PatternLite that has all the info about this particular block merging: four snappy yellow-and-white blocks into blue houses.

It normally costs five bucks, but you can use the coupon below to get it for half-price. And inside is another discount coupon for any of the patterns in my shop. This PatternLite is nine pages of instruction and includes templates for the odd parts of the house, above, plus info on the four different smaller blocks.

Take this coupon and head over to PayHip, if you’d like to nab my Build Me a House PatternLite.

The last thing I want to show is how you can swap elements of one block for another.

I have been in love with this block forever, ever since way back in the day, a Flickr group did it for a Halloween online bee block.

But they have a straight stem and I see a curved stem in the BB+ version. This is no problemo, my quilty friend. Swap the stems!

Since both of these are based on a nine-patch block, I can just print the templates for 1740, then print just the stem patch for 1735 (by using the Preview, I can delete patches I don’t want to print), and then swap that part of the block.

If I wanted to just rotary cut them all, I could use this chart (which is the Rotary Cutting Chart of the Export Menu). It will tell you how many to cut of one size, if you change the “Calculations for:” above. However, it will not tell me how much fabric to buy or to pull. I hope that is coming in a future version!

Jennifer (jeifner on IG) was the winner of the giveaway. I typed/copied everyone’s names from Instagram as well as names from comments on the blog posts on this website. I used Google’s Random Number Generator to select the winner, so congratulations, Jenn!

Thank you very much to every one, for all your kind and interesting comments. I enjoyed reading them very much. I also want to say a thank you to The Electric Quilt Company for generously offering up a package of software for me to giveaway. I did ask them if they were having any discounts for people who might want to buy this software. Apparently they always have a site-wide sale over Memorial Day, if you are interested in purchasing this for yourself.

Happy Quilting, everyone!

Sunny Flowers • quilt #246 • 54″ square

Welcome back to BlockBase+ Week! In this post, Post #2 of BB+ week, we’ll build a medallion quilt.

UPDATE: Giveaway Contest is closed. Thanks for entering!

Sunny Flowers was a fun quilt to make, but I think using BlockBase+ (BB+) enabled me to move a little faster on some of the borders, and I’ll tell you why: I could just decide what size I wanted a certain border, head into BB+ and choose a type of block, then re-size it easily.

Center

In many medallions, the center is where you start. A lot of moderns have been trying centers off to the side, but however its placed, usually there is a larger catch-your-eye-and-set-your-theme block to anchor the quilt.

I have a few more center ideas in my free TipSheet for Sunny Flowers Quilt (details in a minute).

Here are the two centers I mentioned in the kick-off post for BlockBase+ week: a spring/summer block and an fall leaves Autumn block. There are tons of possible centers, and since you can size them, your options are wide open. I begin my designing more easily in an illustrative digital program (Affinity Designer, if you want to know), so that’s where I start. But if you are a quilter who works in EQ8, all of these blocks are available to you in that program.

This was my first version, but it just didn’t work well. Cute, but in my world I like stronger colors and stronger contrasts. I give you my final measurements in the Tip Sheet, but I did keep track of how wide the plain strips were, so I could choose blocks that fit.

I refer constantly to the wide body of work that Melanie McNeil has posted on her blog Catbird Quilt Studio. The first page you should visit is a page listing all her topics, called Medallion Lessons. She has links to everything else on that page–a wonderul resource! She and I have corresponded for years, so when I hit this impasse, she had all sort of tips and tricks for me to try. Some of my angst is written about here.

Version Two. Remember, that I had determined what size all those borders were, and then went into BlockBase+ to find blocks I liked. I would then resize them, and make a sample or two or five.

I had been cleaning out photos and saw a quilt that had shapes I liked (we’re talking about the orangey-pink border). I found a similar block in BlockBase+ and since I wanted a four-inch block, I re-sized this Brackman ID 1194 block to print out at 8″ so that part in the aqua circle would be the correct size. I changed the corners from the photo, using a Drunkard’s Path block (again, from BlockBase+), written about in this post. Moral of this story: take photos at Quilt Shows, get ready for your future.

This was The Plan.

Yeah, okay, and this total wreck was The Plan, too, as I tried out different borders.

I kept trying to go farther with those crosses. I really really like them. But the bold orange-pink border was too strong, so it became the last pieced border. I had the brain flash to use violet in that outer border, so I stayed up one night searching online shops for violet; however, this is not the color this year.

I was madly going through my stash one early morning, and had a stack of fabrics neatly lined up on the ironing board when my husband walked in. After explaining that I’d gone through everything, he reached over and pulled out a piece of fabric from the ombré bin. “You mean, like this?” he asked. I pieced it in the middle to get the darker outer corners, and it was done.

Get Your Tip Sheet for Free

I’ve compiled a little TipSheet for you for this quilt, which is free, if you use this coupon code:

Just enter it in at the checkout spot at PayHip, where I sell my patterns, and it will download for free to your email. I do have plans to make this a full-fledged pattern, but just like The Plan above, it may go awry. But for now, get your free tipsheet for Sunny Flowers.

UPDATE: Giveaway is now closed. Thank you to all who entered. Winner will be announced on Sunday, April 25, 2021.

Yes, the giveaway is still going strong. Please leave a comment below about how you will use BlockBase+: would its be a baby quilt for a new niece or nephew? Would it be a medallion quilt? Or do you need a fun picnic quilt for summer?

If so, maybe this Brackman ID 912 Mayflower is the one for you?

Leave me a comment below. I will be combining all the comments from everywhere before I pick the winner, so, I don’t mind if you leave one here, too!