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Saturday, July 6, 2019

A Simple Piano Key Border.

How to create and use a simple piano key border.

First the simple piano key pattern has to be created.
Follow these steps.
Design/Sew Quilt > Start New. (If you see pop up questions, answer them appropriately)
Block Pattern > Enter Rectangle Manually (this can be any size. I used the default 10” by 10”)
Continue > Finished.
Choose Line from the Geometric catalog. Continue.
Turn on the 1” grid. Turn Snap on.
Rotate or move the line until one end snaps to a grid intersection. If the other end isn’t also snapped to the grid, use stretch to anchor the snapped end, then move the other end until it snaps to the grid. This line needs to be absolutely vertical. It doesn’t matter how long it is. Mine happens to fill my 10” block from top to bottom.
 
Finished > Copy Pattern.  Touch the line. Continue. 
Rotate that line 90ยบ.
Move it so that the Start of that line snaps to the end of the vertical line.
 
Select Stretch and anchor the S. Touch the E of that line and move it until it snaps to the grid one inch away from the S.
 
Finished > Combine Patterns.
Touch the vertical line > Continue > touch the horizontal line > Continue > Finished.

Copy Pattern > Touch the pattern > Continue.
 
Flip Y.
Move the flipped copy so The Start of the copy snaps to the end of the original. Finished.
 
Combine patterns. Touch the first pattern, > Continue > touch the second pattern > Continue > Finished.
 
Finished > Save Quilt/Pattern > Save a Pattern from the Quilt. Touch the pattern. Continue .
Name you pattern piano Key. And place it in a catalog that makes sense to you. (I put mine in Geometric)


Now on to create a border on a quilt using that simple piano key pattern.

This assuming a quilt is loaded, so get to the step that says Add Block > Mark On Quilt.
Here’s my marked border. It has straight ends because I am going to put a motif in each corner and not take the piano keys around the corner.

 

Add/Edit Pattern > Add Pattern > Pantograph > Use Current Block
Find the Piano Key pattern and select it for both rows.

This is how my border looked. My border is not 12” wide on its short side, so only one row of the panto shows. 
The spacing between the lines is half an inch. I used my measure tool to find that out.


If I want the lines spaced closer together or further apart, I use Skew and either tap the side facing arrows, or sweep the screen sideways.
If I want them spaced further apart than Skew will allow, I use Row Height and sweep the screen top to bottom until I get the spacing I want. I use the measure tool to check the spacing. (Making a note of this spacing helps so I can replicate it for the other borders. I cannot simply copy this pattern because look at my border block – it is far from straight! )
Also I pay attention to each end of the border – do the piano keys look the same at both ends, or is the spacing unequal? I use skew or row height to get them looking the same as possible. 
Finished .
Choose Continuous for the transition > Accept.
 
Notice how the top and bottom edge of the pattern follows my block. If the block is marked accurately, the small straight lines joining the vertical piano keys will run right along the ditch and right at the outer edge of the border.  Using this method, I’d turn my quilt to do the side borders.
Ofcourse, piano keys can also be set in place using line pattern as long as you have a nice straight line to follow, and then the quilt wouldn’t need to be turned because you could just come down the sides with each advance. In my example, if I followed the seam line when placing the repeats of the piano keys using line pattern, the piano keys would not be parallel or perfectly vertical, they’d tilt as I followed the seam line up and down. In the end which method you use, is determined by the quilt.





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