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EQ Lessons: Making Peek-A-Boo Blocks

by Andrea Poulimenos

Today we're going to learn how to draw on top of Library blocks and make our own designs. Let's make those library blocks peek through.

1. Start a new project.
2. Name it whatever you wish. (I named mine PeekABoo.)
3. Choose LIBRARIES - Block Library from the top menu bar.
4. Click EQ Libraries and copy a few of the following blocks from the following categories:
   

   (You don't need them all):

1 Classic Pieced -	Album (Autograph) -	Album - Variable Star, Album Block VI
	Antique Mosaics -	Mosaic, No. 1(2), Mosaic No. 2(2), Mosaic No. 3(2), Mosaic No. 17
	Classics -	Log Cabin, Nine Patch, Shoo Fly
	Compass & Wheel -	Compass Star, Baby Aster
	Diamond in a Square -	Twelve Triangles
	Eccentrics -	Odds and Ends, The Priscilla
	Eight Point Stars -	Diamond
	Four Patch -	Temple Court
	Nine Patch Stars -	Garden Patch
	Striped Borders -	Stripe 2, Stripe 9
2 Contemporary Pieced -	Cross Variations -	(anything in here)
	Kaleidoscopes -	(anything in here)
	Royal Crowns -	(anything in here)
3 Paper Piecing -	Crazy Foundations -	(at least one)
	Pineapples -	(at least one)

 

5. Click the Close button when you're done copying blocks.
6. Click the View Sketchbook button.
7. Go to the Blocks tab.
8. Click your first block to select it and click the Edit button.
9. Click the Arc tool.
10. Draw an arc from each corner to the next. If your arc is facing the wrong way as you are drawing it, press the SPACEBAR and it will flip. (This doesn't work if you've already finished drawing the arc... only while you're drawing it.)
11. After you've finished the four arcs, click the Color tab.
12. Click the EasyDraw tab now.

    Why do we do this? When you click (toggle) between the tabs, it registers your nodes.

    What's that mean in English? A node is one of those little black dots at the intersections of your lines or arcs. When you first drew your arcs they were whole pieces. Now, they are split wherever they crossed a line of the original block. Switching between the tabs also split the lines of the original block wherever our new arcs crossed it.

    

    What's the benefit? Now when we go to delete everything behind the arc, we're deleting the pieces and not the whole line.

13. Click the Select tool.
14. Click a line that lies between the arc and the block outline (shaded pink area). Be sure not to delete part of your arc.
15. Press your keyboard DELETE key.
16. Repeat 14-16 for all the lines in the shaded pink area. Be sure not to delete part of your arc.
17. Click the Color tab when you're finished.
18. Click the Paintbrush tool.
19. Click the Prints tab of the palette.
20. Pick a light color and click on it.
21. Color the four arc-parts this light color by clicking on them. (This was the shaded pink area earlier.)
22. Pick other colors and color in the center patches by clicking on them.
23. Your coloring doesn't have to be perfect, we can also recolor from the Quilt Worktable.
24. Click the Save in Sketchbook button when you're finished coloring.
25. Click WORKTABLE - Work on Quilt.
26. QUILT - New Quilt - On Point.
27. Click the Layout tab.
28. Make your quilt any number of blocks at any size, but drag the sashing slider bar to 0.00 so there is no sashing.
29. Click the Layer 1 tab.
30. Click the Set tool. Then click the Blocks tab of the palette if you aren't already looking at it.
31. Use the scrollbar to scroll to the last block in the palette. It might appear as a line drawing.
32. Click the last block to select it.
33. Use the colorway arrows to scroll to the colored version of the block you just drew.
34. Hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard and click an empty square in your quilt. Keep holding and click a second time on the second row of squares.
35. Release the CTRL key.
36. Click the Eyedropper tool and click a color in the center of your block.
37. Your cursor will now change to the last color tool you used (most likely the Paintbrush).
38. Hold down the CTRL key again and click a space in the border.
39. Release the CTRL key.
40. Use the Paintbrush to recolor individual patches, or CTRL + the Paintbrush to recolor the same patch in every block in that row. (Remember, you're working with an On-Point quilt, so it works in two's.) Or, use the Swap tool and just replace that color everywhere in the quilt with a new one that you choose.
41. Click the Save in Sketchbook button to save this quilt.
42. Repeat Steps 6-41 for the rest of the blocks in the Sketchbook that you want to do. Not all blocks work well for this method. You may find it easiest if you draw, color and save all your blocks first, then design all your quilts. (In other words, do all your Block Worktable work first, then the Quilt Worktable work later.)
43. Add any notecard information you would like so the names appear on your printouts. Do this by clicking View Sketchbook.
44. Click the Quilts or Blocks tab depending on what you want to name. Scroll to find the quilt, or scroll and click on the block you want. Click the Notecard button.
45. Click the Save button to save your notecard changes

Print a Whole Pear

47. Optional - Print a pattern for the Arc/Tear-shape as one section:
    1. BLOCK - New Block - EasyDraw.
    2. Click the Arc tool.
    3. Draw 2 arcs in the shape of a tear. Make sure your tear is straight up and down. For example, make sure that if you start at the 3.00" mark on at the top, that you stop at the 3.00" mark on the bottom.
    4. Click to the Color tab.
    5. Save this block in the Sketchbook.
    6. WORKTABLE - Work on Quilt.
    7. Click the Set tool.
    8. Scroll to the end of the blocks and click on the tear-shaped block you just drew.
    9. Use the third or fourth, right-facing colorway arrows to get from the line drawing version of your block to the next coloring.
    10. Click on your quilt over one of your peek-a-boo blocks to replace it. Don't worry, we're not going to make you keep this quilt.
    11. Click the Select tool and click the tear-shaped block you just set in your quilt.
    12. FILE - Print - Templates.
    13. Put a check next to "Size from quilt."
    14. Click Preview.
    15. Click the Delete button at the top.
    16. Click the large C-shaped piece to select it.
    17. Press you keyboard DELETE key.
    18. Click the Move button at the top. Click and drag the tear shape to be on the first page. Blank pages don't print, so don't worry about the second page.
    19. Click the Print button.

 

What the pattern would look like if the tear-shaped parts were one piece. (Mock up done in Photoshop, but could be simulated in EQ5 by using motifs in Layer 2.)