'1920's & 1930's Blocks' from Three Ducks on a Roof

 
 

Classic Appliqué
Patterns for EQ Software

1920's & 1930's Blocks

$ 26.95 CDN

The blocks in this EQ Classic Appliqué CD represent an intense historical period in the early part of this century. On the whole, they cover the decades of Art Deco, include the First World War and reflect the early years of the Great Depression. According to the Electric Quilt Company, these blocks "represent a time of popular revival of quilt interest, and the birth of the quilt industry and quilt guilds." From this period on, "fabric companies, newspapers and magazines increasingly published old block patterns and invented new ones" and these are what you find on this CD of 140 patterns that are "mainly from the first quarter of the 20th Century but include blocks from the 1940's and 1950's."

As with my Folk Art and Baltimore Album web pages, I would like to take you on a small tour through the software. So, feel free to make yourself a cup of tea or coffee and I will wait for your return.

As with the other Classic Appliqué CDs in this series, this CD is an EQ5 software add-on. When you download the CD, its blocks will be placed directly in the EQ5 Block Library. You cannot access these blocks outside of EQ5.

Here is my Block Library and I have the 1920's and 1930's Album open (Folk Art and Baltimore Album Blocks follow this one). For my little tour, I have decided to take a block from the Four Elements category and have chosen the one in the lower left corner and it's highlighted in green. It is called 'Dogwood Branch.' It just so happens that the provincial flower for British Columbia is the Dogwood Tree so it's no wondering my attraction!

After clicking on the block in the Block Library, I clicked on the Copy button below it and the block was copied to my project Sketchbook. You can see the block to the left sitting beside both a Folk Art and a Baltimore Album block. I clicked on the Dogwood Branch block which is why it is highlighted in blue and then clicked on the Edit button and this placed the block on my Block Worktable. I can now proceed to play.

It is this aspect to EQ's products that I love which is that I can change them and truly make them my own. So, I looked at the pattern and thought "the leaves are too skinny to be a BC Dogwood so I am going to have to fatten them up!"
When playing with both the Folk Art and Baltimore Album blocks I deleted patches; now, I am going to alter them.

As you can see in the screenshot to the right, I have already changed the top three leaves on the upper branches. I am in the process of changing the leaves on the lower right branch and you might notice a darker line which is the leaf arc I am altering. To get a better idea of what I am doing I have enlarged this area and show it below.

All these leaves are made up of two arcs and I can alter the shape of each arc. To do this, I must first click on the 'Bezier Edit Tool' which is the fourth button from the top on the right-hand toolbar; you can see it is depressed on the screenshot above. I then move over to an arc line on a leaf and click on it and two dotted 'handles' appear. It is these handles that alter the shape of the arc. I click and hold on the handle and move it in and out or up and down until I get the shape I want. I did this to each of the two leaf arcs on all the upper three leaves of each branch.

Here is the final result and you may notice I also fattened up the knobby design in the middle where the branches crisscross. As well, I decided to add some circles to the block just to be 'wild and crazy.' I won't explain how I went about making the circles just to add a bit of mystery to this tour. I then painted my block with those classic depression era colours of pink, moss green and blue. (I should mention our wild BC Dogwood is a creamy white.)

The final step is to print my pattern and since this is an appliqué EQ5 offers me only the templates printing option. On the templates printing window, I set the block size and click preview. Now, EQ5 presents a template for every appliqué piece and it is up to the user to decide what to keep and what to delete. Here is what I have decided I need to create my block. I moved all the templates over to one page (the red-lined leaf is the last to be moved) and my printer will ignore the blank page.

This is only a brief tour of EQ's 1920's and 1930's Classic Appliqué patterns but I hope it gives you a sense of what is offered. These blocks are ideal for all the pastel colours in your stash and for the wonderful feedsack and depression era reproductions that are now on the market (maybe 1950's retro?). And, not only can you use these patterns as they are; but, as with the other blocks is this series, you can alter or enhance them to make them unique and your own. I think I am in love with my computer and EQ. I feel like taking off my socks and dancing. Okay, I know they are mittens but you don't wear mittens in the middle of a rain forest! How could you pick the chantrelles?

Happy Quilting
Anita