My mom wanted to make a quilt for her little sister. Susie had just had a kidney transplant. Mom wanted Susie to be able to curl up on the couch under a cozy quilt that shielded her from the A/C and reminded her that she’s loved even when we’re on the other side of the US.

So, one night I get a phone call from my mom. “Andrea, sweetie, I don’t know what to do with the blocks now!”

When I asked her what blocks, she said “I made Ohio Stars on a muslin background: 2 pink, 2 yellow and 2 blue. I have some left over colors and very little left over muslin.”

“Mom, do you have a ruler? Can you measure the blocks for me?”

“Sure, they are all 17¼ inches.”

“Eeek, those are huge. That’s 16¾ inches finished. And you only have 6 blocks? Not 9?”

“Well, yes, it’s supposed to be a lap quilt for your aunt while she recovers.”

So, meanwhile, I open EQ6 and start entering numbers. I mulled over the odd block sizes, and the fact that we had pairs of blocks and not an odd number of them, as I worked. I started a new horizontal quilt layout and made the blocks 16.75. I knew I’d have either 3×2 blocks or 2×3 blocks horizontally and vertically. As I played, I noticed the blocks needed some breathing room, so I added muslin sashing.

Then, I tried doing a border full of squares around the quilt out of the leftover colors. It looked cute, so I clicked FILE > Export Image and sent the image to my mom as an attachment.

She opened up the picture and said “It’s perfect! Now what do I do?”

So, I went to Layer 2, set the Paintbrush to black, and clicked the Appliqué text tool. I kept switching between Layer 2 (and typing) and Layer 1 (to preview the Rotary Cutting charts). I wrote all the cutting instructions on top of the quilt and clicked FILE > Export Image again.

I emailed her the new picture and she said “Oooh! I can do that.” She called a day or two later and said the lap quilt was done and she was binding it.

Aunt Susie loved the quilt and the fact that her sister made it for her. I just thought it was cool that EQ6 allowed me to help my mom via phone & email for a quilt where the math for the blocks wasn’t obvious.