Drawing Penny Rugs in EQ

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. When someone asked about penny rugs on the Info-EQ mail list, a light bulb went on in my head and I just thought I would give it a try.  It's is much easier than many projects I have attempted with EQ!!  I'll show you how to make the following little butterfly penny rug and then let your creative inner-self come out and design your own.........

Let's get started.........

DRAWING THE "RUG"
On the Block Worktable, click on the Block menu and choose New Block/Patchdraw.  Click on Block menu again and choose Drawing Board Setup.  Set it up as follows: General Tab: Snap to Grid - 24 x 24, Block Size - 6" x 6".  Click the Graph Paper Tab: Set- 6 x 6, Style-Graph paper lines. 

Note1:  Leave the block outline on for now, we will remove it later.  It will give you a visible constraint so that you won't draw your rug outside the block. 
Note 2: It's up to you Save the block in steps as you go along and to Save the entire project.  When you save a partial applique patch it will not show up in the sketchbook, but it IS there, name it "Step 1", etc. on the Notecard. If you go to edit the step, you'll get a message saying "Drawing Data Is Inconsistent" but click OK, your partial applique should still be there. Clear as Mud?

2. Click on the Bezier Edit tool and click on each node and point to the handles and straighten your tongues. :-) If you look at fig. 2, you can see that I moved the handles parellel to to vertical and horizontal grid lines.  Once you have straightened all your tongues, your drawing should look something like fig. 3.

fig. 1

fig. 2

fig. 3

4. Click on the Bezier Edit tool, zooming in if needed, to connect the nodes in the four inner corners of the rug (fig. 5). To connect the nodes point and click on a node and drag it on top the node you want to join it with and it will snap to auto-join. Once you have all the nodes joined, you can remove the block outline by clicking on it with the Select tool and then Delete from your keyboard. Save in the Sketchbook and then color it and save again.  Go back to my main Penny Rug page for some suggestions on fabrics.

fig. 5

DRAW SOME PENNIES: 5. Using the same Drawing Board Setup, click on the Block menu and choose New Block/Patchdraw. Click on the small triangle on the Simple Shape tool and select the circle shape from the fly-out menu.  Holding down the mouse button, drag the cursor on the block to draw the circle.   With the Select tool reshape and resize the circle as needed to almost fill the block.  Next clone the circle twice, editing each new circle with the Select tool, making it slightly smaller than the first one. (fig. 6) Remove the block outline. Color and save.

fig. 6

PUT YOUR PENNY RUG TOGETHER:
6. Go to the Worktable menu and select Work on Quilt. In the Quilt menu choose New Quilt/Country Set.  Click on the Layout tab and make the quilt 12" x 12".  Click on the Borders tab and make the borders 0 (i.e. no borders). Click on Layer 1 tab. Click on the Set block tool and select your colored rug block.  Point the mouse on the quilt and drag a box shape and your block will fill it.  Click on the Adjust tool and resize your rug block to fill the quilt. 

7. Now, if you don't see the Graphic Pad toolbar at the bottom of your screen, go to the View menu and check it.  We're going to set the pennies on the quilt in Layer 1.  After experimenting, I found it easier to keep them on the first layer with the rug, so that they won't get in your way when you add the center motif.  Click on the Set Block tool and select your penny motif. Place pennies on the tongues of the quilt -- they don't have to be perfect yet, we'll adjust them after we get them all set on the quilt.  It kind of looks like peacock roadkill now, but we'll fix it.  Once you have the pennies placed on the quilt, click on the Adjust tool and select one of the pennies.  Resize it to 1.5 inches. Holding down the SHIFT key, click on the 1.5" penny first and then click on the remaining pennies ( see fig. 7 below) and on the Graph Pad, click on the button with crossed arrows  to resize their width and height.  They should all be 1.5" now.  Move the pennies in place on the tongues. 

fig. 7

8. On Layer 2, set the butterfly applique motif (in the EQ Block Library, Applique Motifs/Animals) or use one of your own.  I added one more layer to the wings of the butterfly.  Color the butterfly, resize it and center as needed. Save in Sketchbook, save the project and set back and admire your penny rug!

9. Now go have a cookie for yourself and one for me too.....