Print this Page

by Andrea Bishop

Welcome to the club! If you have EQ software and the Kaleidoscope Collection add-on installed, you’ll be able to follow along.

Intro

This month we are going to draw again. Make sure you brush up on the Foundation Fundamentals (Lesson 1 and Lesson 2) from earlier. We’ll be using those “rules” again for drawing inside wedges and copying & pasting them to complete the block.

Start the Project

  1. Open your EQ software.
  2. Start a new project and name it Kaleidoscopes Last Lesson. Click OK.

Start the Block

  1. Click WORKTABLE > Work on Block.
  2. Click BLOCK > New Block > EasyDraw Block.

Don’t skip this part: Let’s make sure our worktable is set up correctly.

  • Turn on the Precision Bar if you haven’t already. (Click the VIEW menu. If Precision Bar doesn’t have a check next to it, click on those words to turn it on. If it does have a check, just click away from the list so you don’t turn it off.)
  • Make your Precision Bar match mine (see picture below). My shorthand for this stuff will be the TAB order. So if you double-click on the Block Width, type in a new number, and press TAB, the numbers would be: 6, 6, 24, 24, 2, 2
    Then, Graph Paper Cells ONSnap to Grid ONSnap to Node ON, and Snap to Drawing OFF.

 

Start the Circle

  1. Click the Arc  tool.

Tip:

* Remember, if your arc is facing the wrong way, press the SPACEBAR before releasing the mouse to flip the arc, then release.

  1. Make a circle by drawing 4 arcs that each start/end where the graph paper meets the block outline.
  2. Click the Add to Sketchbook  button to save your base.

Making a Hexagon Kaleidoscope – Break up the Circle

Tips:

* The following technique works because the radius never changes on a circle (length from the center to the edge). It is the same length anywhere on the circle. This is how you get any polygon.

* The trick to doing these is “common multiples.” Your circle is already split into 4. What is the smallest number that plays nice with 4 and 6 (6 because we’re doing a hexagon)? You might jump and say 24… but don’t forget about 12.

So 4 x 3 = 12,
and 6 x 2 = 12.

  1. Click the Shape  tool.
  2. We need to bring up the Edit box, so you can do any of the following ways: a) clicking the square in the bottom corner of the Shape tool image, b) clicking BLOCK > Edit on the menu bar, or c) by right-clicking anywhere and choosing Edit.
  3. Click on an arc to select it.
  4. We have 4 and need to split it into 12. So each arc needs to be split into 3. Click the Thirds button.
  5. Click on each of the remaining arcs and click the Thirds button for each. Your block will look like this now:

Making a Hexagon Kaleidoscope – Draw the Sides

  1. Now that we have the circle split into 12, we just need to draw lines to every other node. Click the Line tool.
  2. Starting from the top-middle node, draw a line not to the next node, but to the node after that.
  3. Starting from where you left off, draw a line to the node 2 node spaces away.
  4. Keep drawing lines to every other node until you end at the top-middle node again. Your block should look like this now:
  5. Click the Add to Sketchbook  button to save this step.

Making a Hexagon Kaleidoscope – Draw the Edges of the Wedges (oooh that rhymes)

  1. Still using the Line  tool, draw lines starting at one of the corners of the hexagon… through the center of the block to the opposite corner of the hexagon. You’ll draw 3 lines and your block will look like this now:
  2. Click the Add to Sketchbook  button to save this step.

Making a Hexagon Kaleidoscope – Clean Up the Base

  1. Click the Pick  tool.
  2. You don’t need the circle anymore. Click on a section of the circle to select it with the Pick tool.
  3. Press your keyboard DELETE key to delete it. (Sometimes, I’m lazy and just right-click it and Convert to Guides… this works for EasyDraw, but never for PatchDraw.)
  4. Delete all 12 parts to the circle by clicking on each and pressing your keyboard DELETE key.
  5. Click the Add to Sketchbook  button  to save this step. This is your hexagon base. You’ll use this for every hexagon you want to draw. You might want to name it in the Sketchbook using the Notecard.

The rest is up to you…. what do you want to draw?

  1. Using the techniques you’ve learned over the last 12 months, use the Shape  tool to split one wedge into however many pieces you like.
  2. Use the Line  tool to play connect the dots within the wedge. Remember not to break any of the foundation piecing rules (do Y’s not X’s, etc.). Use the trick with toggling to the Color tab and back to the EasyDraw tab to make the intersections and the Pick  tool  to delete of the parts you don’t need.
  3. Click the Add to Sketchbook  button to save this step.
  4. Turn OFF Snap to Grid:
    Click the Snap to Grid button on the Precision Bar so it isn’t pressed in.
  5. Click the Pick  tool.
  6. Click on one of the unique lines to the wedge and then SHIFT+click on the other unique lines, plus one anchor line that goes to an outside corner of the hexagon (marked in red).
  7. EDIT > Copy (or CTRL+C).
  8. EDIT > Paste (or CTRL+V). Don’t deselect it.

Tip: Because this shape has an even number of sides, we can rotate it around 180 degrees and do the work twice as fast. If this were a pentagon though, there’s nothing on the other side… so you’d have to go from wedge to wedge… one by one.

  1. Click BLOCK > Symmetry on the menu bar or the square in the Pick tool button image to bring up the Symmetry box.
  2. Click Rot 180.
  3. Grab the selection by the crosshair in the middle. Move the selection to the opposite wedge you were working on. Drop it in place so the anchor snaps to the corner.
  4. While it’s still selected, SHIFT+click the unique lines in the wedge you got it from (no need to get a second anchor).
  5. EDIT > Copy (or CTRL+C).
  6. EDIT > Paste (or CTRL+V). Don’t deselect it.
  7. BLOCK > Rotate (or right-click and choose Rotate).
  8. Type 60 and click OK.
  9. Grab the selection by the crosshair. Move the selection into the next set of wedges. Remember where your anchor is and try to drop the selection into place so the anchor snaps.
  10. Repeat steps 37-41 for the last pair of wedges.
  11. Click the Add to Sketchbook  button to save the block.
  12. Click the Color tab and color your block.
  13. Click the Add to Sketchbook  button to save this coloring of the block.
  14. To draw another block in your hexagon base, click the View Sketchbook  button > Blocks section. Find your hexagon base (the cleaned up one you might have named on the Notecard). Click on it and click Edit. Keep drawing and saving each design.

  

Trying other Polygon Kaleidoscopes

Here’s a cheat sheet for doing other kaleidoscopes with different sides. REMEMBER…. DON’T BREAK THE EASYDRAW RULES. YOUR SHAPE MUST TOUCH AT LEAST ONE SIDE OF THE BLOCK OUTLINE. Sometimes it’s a good idea to draw anchor lines from the corners of the shape to the block outline

Number of sides How to Split the Circle & where to draw What degree to rotate
4 no need for a circle… it’s just a square.
Do a 4-Patch or Four X block.
90 degrees
5 Partition each arc into 5, draw to every 4th node
72 degrees
6 Partition each arc into 3, draw to every 2nd node
60 degrees
7 Partition each arc into 7, draw to every 4th node
doesn’t have a nice number, draw each wedge at the same time
8 Partition each arc in Half, draw to every node
45 degrees
9 Partition each arc into 9, draw to every 4th node
40 degrees
10 Partition each arc into 5, draw to every 2nd node
36 degrees
11 Partition each arc into 11, draw to every 4th node
doesn’t have a nice number, draw each wedge at the same time
12 Partition each arc into 3, draw to every node
30 degrees

Once you have your kaleidoscope base done, you can draw just about anything inside.

What’s next for me? After I have a few months of rest from sewing my current kaleidoscope quilt, I might try something with more fussy cutting and adventurous fabrics. I was thinking of trying a pentagon project. Blocks like this in a layout like that… But that’s only if I’m daring enough and my Y-seams lay flat in my current project: