Inklingo · Quilting

The Cost of Unfinished Projects, or Why I Love Inklingo

I originally posted the below in a rant to the Inklingo group. I wanted to defend the pricing of the collections to people who seemed upset that they weren’t free. The internet has made it easy to get a lot of things for free, but when it comes to small businesses, especially those that are providing a wonderful niche service like quilting tools, I think it’s extra important that we recognize their value and pay for their work.

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Occasionally I see rumblings over the cost of Linda’s collections and it surprises me. The way I see it, this method of getting shapes out of fabric that are accurate and fun to piece is worth way more than the price tag in convenience and a FINISHED quilt.

I found Inklingo during a search for a better method of getting shapes that couldn’t be rotary cut (one day soon, I will have that double wedding ring quilt I dreamed of from the beginning). I was at the point of making my own rubber stamps (egads) when I stumbled onto Inklingo.

Now, when I start planning a new quilt, I start with Inklingo and EQ7. I easily spend $100 for the fabric and notions and another $75 for batting and backing. Then, of course, there is the time spent piecing, basting and quilting. Imagine if I only half-pieced a quilt and after hours of tracing and cutting, just got tired of the whole thing. Into the UFO pile it goes and along with it, $100 and time lost.

The best part is that, unlike paper-piecing, when I’m done, I still have the collection, pristine and ready for more projects. Also, there is a lot of thoughtful work going into these collections. Marks that make matching so easy and combo sheets that optimize fabric use and rotary cutting. Maybe it’s that the download of a digital file feels like you’re buying something that isn’t worth actual money, but that is so wrong.
Every month now, I budget for more Inklingo. That apple core quilt I finished recently would never have existed without it!
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The featured image shows my completed apple core quilt covering my partner, who likes to make photos more interesting through a variety of facial expressions.
Inklingo · Quilting

Inklingo Mystery Quilt Clue #1

Fabric choices for Inklingo mystery quilt
Fabric choices for Inklingo mystery quilt

So Linda is doing a mystery quilt! I’m quite excited and the first clue sends us to find fabric in the following format: light, medium, dark and accent. I don’t have the yardage, so I went through my stash (it’s meager compared to other stashes I’ve seen and some of these fabrics were bought a decade ago!) and pulled out these choices.

I’m still undecided on my medium values, so I may go through my blues and purples for another option.

What do you think? Too disparate on the colour wheel? Not sure which one is the accent?

Inklingo · Quilting

Mug Rug Swap Finished!

IMG_4367I just realized that I never posted the photo of the completed rug! Looking at this awful phone photo, a few thoughts come to mind:

  • The binding looks terrible. I hand-sewed it on and it is so wrinkled!
  • I didn’t sew the patches using a scant quarter-inch and on the smaller patches, I should have gone further out. The block size was smaller and the whole rug much less than straight.
  • My quilting doesn’t look particularly good. Perhaps I needed to stabilize it in a frame after all.

 

Inklingo · Quilting

Playing with EQ7

So I finally sat down to have a play with EQ7 and some Inklingo shapes. I received a newsletter from Accuquilt (part of my initial research into better template-makers before I found Inklingo) a while ago with this quilt featured:
http://www.accuquilt.com/go-cactus-flower-quilt.html

I saw it and thought the design was interesting and probably Inklingo-able. So I opened up EQ7 to redraw the quilt (and change the colors to something that suited me better) and while calculating all the shapes, I discovered that this is a variation on the 9″ Storm at Sea!

 

And then there was this cute pattern in another newsletter from Fat Quarter Shop:

http://fatquartershop.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/its-sew-emma-spotlight-color-me-crayons.html

I halved the size to see if it could be completely Inklingo-able, but there are some shapes that aren’t for sale.

 

I recoloured it and I’m calling it Rainbow Crayons.

Then I went back to the Inklingo site for the Drunkard’s Path EQ file and played with the block. I call this Colour Tabs.