My release day has finally arrived……
Here she is my Alberta Canada Block.
Before we begin Id lake to give a big THANK YOU to Marian of Seams to be Sew and Amy at Sew Incredibly Crazy without them we would not be able to have this blog hop with all these giveaways. Thanks Girls for all the work you put into organizing this event the 2016 Road Home Row Along.
I’ll try my best to explain my design process and the steps I made to get to this finished block.
First of there was size specifications that our blocks had to be. I designed mine on EQ7. The size of my block when finished without borders is 12″ x 40″. I choose to do a landscape layout as I was planning on doing a landscape of Alberta Canada.
Elements that to me represent Alberta are:
- mountains- I only live an hours drive from seeing the peeks of the majestic Rockie Mountains,
- foot hills- can’t get to the mountains without crossing them,
- evergreen trees living in northern Alberta the are abundant and I have pine trees in my yard ,
- pump jacks are found in the field next to my house,
- fields of grain and summer fallow I live in an agricultural community,
- pastures for horse I have 6 of these in my yard,
- wild rose is the Alberta Provincial flower and they grow wild in the ditches along my driveway
- cloudy skies. Only in Alberta can we get all 4 seasons in one day.
The next step was how to lay them out. Of course the mountains had to be in the West. then as we head east we would come to the foot hills then fields. This was all done using layers of applique.
Now that I had my basic idea what I wanted in my row off to my EQ7 program to design it. This turned out to be also more confusing as I was just learning the program…did I mention I like to challenge myself. I tried drawing the mountains and for some reason they kept erasing when I wanted to go color them. Turns out that all your shapes need to be closed if you want to color them in. Thanks to the help from Marian of Seam to be Sew we got that portion figured out. The rest went well as I knew what I was now doing. With the landscape done I could move on to adding the shapes.
My next step was to do the shapes for the pump jacks, horse, pine trees, and rose. this I had to do into my applique section of the EQ program. I found the pump jacks to be quite challenging again my shapes were not closed. The pine trees were an afterthought so they were added into the design later in the process.
She was coming together. now all I had to do was copy paste and resize the elements. and color them in.
Whoop hoop…. I was finished the block design. now all I had to do was print it out and start assembling it. Again this sounded easy but when I first started for some reason the block size was not set to what I wanted and my mountains when I cut out the fabric were all squished as i was working with a 12×20 block not 12×40 block. And I had forgotten to reverse my templates.
Assembly of my block went as follows:(I’m going to make an other one just to show you all the steps in photos as I got way ahead of myself and was done before I knew that I had to do a detailed description.)
- I sewed the sky fabric to the bottom what ever scrap I had on hand to make a foundation to mount the rest of the elements on.
- Traced out all the shapes that was needed onto fusible web I like to use Heat n Bond.
- Starting with the mountains that were in the rear and then assembling towards the front. I layered and pinned everything into place and then ironed it town to get the heat n bond to stick.
- Same thing was done with the foreground shapes.
- then all I had to do was run a satin stitch around all of my shapes.
My Free pattern can be found:
The Road Home RAL: Alberta Canada
I hope you enjoy and please show off your finished project.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of the blocks offered free to all in this blog hop .
the-road-home-row-along-schedule
Allie oopps
These are the blogs being released.debuted this week. Go to the schedule for links.
Giveaways for dropping by…
I’m having issues with the Giveaways please go to the Seams to be Sew Blog to Enter.
Washington Street Fabrics 1 Bundle – Fats, Strips, Squares / Requirements: US Enterants Only
Anita Goodesign Machine Embroidery Design CD
Love your row so much, and that barn wood frame sets it off perfectly – just wonderful!
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Lovely pattern. It was very interesting to read the design process too.
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Thank you Blaine it was fun to do
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Great Job Renee, This is a wonderful row and the frame shows it off so beautifully. I’m so happy you participated in the Road Home Row Along, I hope you have wonderful successes during the Row Along.
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thanks for putting this on marian I may join you next year again. the next round will be way easier as this year was a learning curve on so many levels
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For a new blogger you’re doing great, and next year, you’ll have all this learning curve stuff out of the way. Most people stop out of frustration, but you pressed on and have done your best, that’s an accomplishment all on its own. I’m very proud of you and you should be proud of yourself, this is not only a really nice row, the blog is also coming along very nicely.
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Uhhh. thanks marian I’m blushing. lol
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Great row!
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thank you
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Nice row! I love seeing how you designed it – nice job of using EQ to do it!
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thanks pamela it was fun.
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Your row is lovely! Great job! I’m so excited to see all the rows.
usairdoll(at)gmail(dot)com
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youll really enjoy them theres some real talent have fun.
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Gorgeous row in a perfect setting!
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thank you anita the barn board makes it more sentimental.
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I’m truly impressed. Very nice.
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thank you
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What a great depiction of Alberta! Love those mountains and rolling hills (isn’t there a camp song about that?) My grandparents lived in Slave Lake for awhile. Thanks for the free pattern.
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your quite welcome deonn
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I love your row and the unique way you display it
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thanks its got a special spot in my sons western themed room
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Thank you 🙂
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What a lovely row!! Great job capturing all the different elements!!
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thanks it was fun to do and easy knowing alberta as home
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How fun to frame up your row!
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got too many quilts and I wanted to showcase it.
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Thanks for the beautiful row pattern.
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you are quite welcome enjoy
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Thank you for your row.
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your welcome enjoy
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Your row is fantastic! You perfectly captured the elements that make up your environment. It was great to see your whole process too. Thanks!
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I really had fun doing it.
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I couldn’t find the comment button. Your row is wonderful and tells us so much about your area of the world! Thank you!
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I’m so glad you like it liz. glad you learned something.
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Sorry you are having difficulties with your give-away entry! Hope it gets fixed soon. I really love your row — reminds me of when we lived in Montana.
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I hope to figure it our but for now go to marians she has them on her blog as host.
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Your row is lovely …. reminds me of our surroundings when we lived in Montana (except we didn’t have so many trees!). Thank you for your pattern! (lynnstck[at]yahoo.com)
(I also couldn’t find a comment button, only reply)
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thank you glad you enjoyed it.
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very nice row by row
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thank you
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Pretty row, with mountains and horses.
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thank that what albertas known for the mountains anyway. lol
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Love the great ideas you came up with on your quilt row! I lived in Alberta as a small child (many moons ago). Wonderful memories-thank you, Susan
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I’m so glad I was able to bring back memories.
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Loved your row, and the designing process. Your inspired me to sit down and do more in my EQ7.
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that’s great liz
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Just beautiful, thanks for sharing your talent
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Anytime
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Thank you for the beautiful pattern
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your welcome
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wow this is really lovely and fun. i really like what you depicted for Alberta Canada. thanks for sharing
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sure. no problem it spoke to me
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Your welcome lori. enjoy
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Your row is great. I enjoyed the reasoning behind your choice of motifs and the story behind designing the row.
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thanks kj. it was fun to design lots of learning curves
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I like how you showed your design steps. Loved reading about your road home.
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I’m glad you ejoyed it. nancy
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This turned out so lovely and showing your process was wonderful!
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that was harder that I thought but got er’ done
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Love your row and it is beautifully done. I have visited Canada, but never made it to Alberta before we moved to Florida 4 years ago. Think a vacation visit will need to be done in the near future before we move to Ecuador.
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you defenetely would not like our winters…. this moring was -1 celcious
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Wow – what a wonderful design. You can see a lot of thought went into it. Thanks for sharing.
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thanks Mary.
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What a pretty row and such thought put into it. The mountains, firs, rolling plains, all of it is wonderful.
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I don’t find I put much thought into it its just the actualy making and drawing it was harder. my mind is always creating
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Your row is so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing it.
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I’m glad you enjoyed it.
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Love your row – so many things to see around your ‘home’
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Thank you I love it. Mind ya I can find beauty in anything.
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Love your row Renee, as I am a fellow Albertan. I think it may be the first one I do.
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Thaks neighbor…. id love to see it.
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I love that you were able to put so many special things in one block.
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Thank you Marcia
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Besides the dynamite row, the frame is just incredible. Perfect for your row. Great job!
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Thanks its barn board from the old barn that was on the property that got torn down ill always have a memory in that frame. kids played in the barn, it got struck by lighning and my dog had her pups under the floor boards.
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Besides one incredible row, that frame is just too perfect. I just love it!
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A lovely depiction of Alberta! Great block!
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Thank you Myra
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Love this great looking horses and alot of thought went into this…. happyness04431@yahoo.com
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Thanks anna I knew instandly what it needed.
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You truly have a beautiful work of art that is so perfect for framing. Lovely!
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Thank you carla
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Your row is great! It’s particularly special to me as my grandparents met and were married in Edmonton. Looking forward to visiting all rows on line. thank you.
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Thank you… there are some spectacular rows coming up.
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This is a really cool row design and interesting post!!
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Thank your. Carol
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Thank you for showing your process. And I love the way you framed your block–it is perfect!
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Thank you the old barn the wood came from has a lot of memories of kids playing in it.
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Thank you for such a nice pattern. Love it!
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Your Welcome Enjou
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your welcome glad you like it
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Thank you for sharing your row by row.
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Anytime Mari. this was fun for me
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I would love to live in a place that still appears to have some wilderness to it.
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yep lots of wilderness. we have moose, cayotes, wolves, bears, cougars, deer elk and beavers.
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Beautiful row. I’ve been waiting ever since before your sneak peek to see the finished row. It says it all about Alberta. And is just as awesome as your quilts. Now to squeeze this row in amongst all my other projects. Lol.
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Thank you Arla. you may find it easier to follow my page for my patterns. I post them there 1st.
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Your design is great. I wish I could see mountains like that on a daily basis, but not here in Kansas.
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is Kansas flat. ive only been to Washington and mishigan in the usa
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Your row is wonderful! I’m excited for this hop — even though it’s barely begun I’ve already seen lots of interesting things. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you Lisa. keep your eyes open theres lots of talent in this hop.
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