Digital Toys in Arnold's Attic

It's been fun waiting for my Arnold's Attic reproduction collection for Moda to arrive. It's scheduled to be in shops in August. I've been digitally doodling with my Electric Quilt and BlockBase programs and the swatches available on the Moda website.

The colors in the line tend to be earth colors: muted orange, brown and green with a lot of blue.

Here's a traditional Spider Web design that I found in my BlockBase digital library of patterns. The pattern was fairly popular about 1900, the time period we are recreating with the prints.

I found the pattern in BlockBase; transferred it to EQ (Electric Quilt) and recolored it with the new fabrics. 

If you have EQ you should try loading pictures of the individual prints into your color palette like I did. See the link to a tutorial below. What you want to do is save pictures of the prints as jpgs and then create your own fabric library.

An easy way to load pictures is to buy the EQ Stash program. The Spring 2010 edition includes Arnold's Attic.

After doing several mockups using BlockBase's traditional patterns I started thinking about doing a "Modern" quilt. I noticed Karrie Lyne's pattern for a quilt she calls Random Reflections on the Moda Bakeshop website. She's used 2-1/2" Jellyroll strips of Fandango fabrics plus yardage to create this strip quilt.

See her tutorial at the Moda Bake Shop by clicking here:
http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/07/random-reflections.html#more

I drew her 10" blocks (36 of them) in EQ and filled in the strips with prints from Arnold's Attic. I turned it on it's side too.

One important part of Karrie's quilt is the solid contrast. She used plain white in hers.

Arnold's Attic doesn't have any solids.

I didn't whine, however. I realized that I don't need to have solids in every collection of fabric I design....

Because Moda has Bella Solid Basics. Above I used Rust (#9900-105)

I found some basic plains that coordinated with the prints but that were brighter or lighter to provide necessary contrast. This one is Figtree Olive (#9900-69). I love that Figtree palette and this color goes perfectly with the prints.

I tried 2 different shades of blue-green. The light one is Sage (#9900-35); the darker Dusty Jade (#9900-38). Karie designed this quilt to be made of 2-1/2" precut strips, Moda's Jelly Rolls, plus yardage.

If you are a digital doodler I suggest you do your planning by copying the Moda prints and plains into EQ. Click here to find out more about the Stash program that updates your digital drawings with the latest prints.

http://www.electricquilt.com/Shop/Stash/StashWEQ.asp

Here's an online tutorial about loading the jpgs yourself:
http://www.electricquilt.com/Support/FAQ/eq6FAQ/eq6_fabricLIB.asp#web

Here's where to find the swatches to save at the United Notions/Moda website:

For Arnold's Attic

http://www.unitednotions.com/jpg_arnolds-attic.zip

For the Bella Solid Basics

http://www.unitednotions.com/un_main.nsf/mf_basics

And here's where to find information about the Electric Quilt program, the BlockBase pattern library and the Stash fabric library.

http://www.electricquilt.com/

http://www.electricquilt.com/Shop/BlockBase/BlockBase.asp