Thank you I will check it out. Sounds interesting!
Sylvia

Sylvia -

The book that I got the "Bella" pattern from is "Bella Bella Quilts, Stunning Designs from Italian Mosaics" written by Norah McMeeking. The book does contain templates that can be copied/traced to make a complete set of foundation pieces for a complete quilt. She also has a pre made set of paper foundations that can be separately purchased to go with a number of quilts in her book.

Here is the link to the book on Amazon.com -

http://www.amazon.com/Bella-Quilts-Stunning-Designs-Italian/dp/1571203044/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224298835&sr=8-1

If you enjoy paper piecing, it's a fun quilt to make.

Mary Kay

What is a Bella quilt/bella book?

Sylvia

JoJo - Yes, unfortunately there are lots of confusing directions. I took a class at my LQS for the Bella quilt and the teacher was telling us that the author is not a quilter by trade - so good intentions, but not great quilt instructions.

As an example of the lacking directions, they provide templates in the book, but forget to tell you to add a quarter inch for the seam. Or Florence (a TQS member) was working on another pattern within the book and they recommend avoiding bias edges on the borded, but then the instructions for the 1/4 or 1/2 square triangles essentially have the bias edge exposed (Florence was finguring out what size squares to cut into triangles to avoid the bias edge (as the directions pointed her the wrong way).

I would still recommend making a Bella! The book has enough good information that if you apply your knowledge and experience as a quilter, you can work your way through it. The pattern that I am making is the Venice Rose, and I am sure that other folks have made other patterns in the book. I would be happy to share the instructions that my teacher shared, which may shore up what you are reading in the book. I am sure other quilters on this site would also lend any advice that they have regarding pattern within the book that have experience with.

There are paper piece templates (to compliment the book) also available for purchase which made it very easy for me to assemble the quilt. Those were all ready to go for me so that made it a lot easier too.

And taking the Bella class at the LQS was a great move! The teacher guided us through the confusion.... and looking back, I realize how much frustration she helped me avoid.

Hope you go for it, if this is a quilt you want to make!!!! It is worth it!

Mary Kay

Mary Kay,

Did you find a lot of errors in the Bella book? I was reading online and many folks commented on the numerous errors in the book. It made me shy away from purchasing the book. I thought I would ask you because you have mastered the technique with your beautiful quilt.

JoJo

NancyinSTL wrote:
WOW! Fabulous!!! Those are definately insirparation! Thanks for pointing them out!

Mary Kay

Hi Mary Kay,

I'm glad that you liked the marquetry designs. Since you did, I thought you might also like and get inspiration from Moroccan plate designs. Years ago, when I saw some of these beautiful plates, I thought that one day I would make a quilt inspired by one of them. Here's just one of many websites where you can see some:
http://www.treasuresofmorocco.com/ceramic-pottery-moroccan-plates-bowls-c-21_23.html?page=2&sort=2a

Enjoy,
Nancy

I found a pattern that I LOVED and posted some pictures in the members blog section!

Thank you for all your help, advice and suggestions! I learned something along the way as I tried to figure out how to make what was in my mind happen with thread!

I am thinking about upgrading the software that I have... fortunately the Editor Lite was able to do the basics that I needed done this time around. But I sure enjoyed the process, so I am anticipating that I will enjoy having more capable software in the future!

Thanks again, Ladies, for all your help and encouragement!

Mary Kay

I decided to put my 2 cents in to agree with Kim.

I played with the designs Nancy suggested in my DP5 using a drawing of a quarter of one of the designs. It works a treat. I first tried a screen capture of one of the designs to produce a .bmp file to load in the picture view. I processed that artwork as a double run outline but that was unsatisfactory...too many missing lines. It only took a bit longer to draw a quarter of the design, then scan it as a .jpg file to process as Kim suggests.

I have also avoided installing Vista on my laptop on which I have installed DP5. There are so many capabilities in the software, it makes my head spin but I love it.

You are very creative and I think you will find that Editor or Designer will open a whole new aspect to your quilting.
Libbi

Nancy- your quilt designs are really wonderful. I saved the link in my favorites file.

MaryKay- V4 Ed lite would not give you Mirror-merge or Wreath tools even if you could get it installed with Vista. I would definitely recommend V5 software. There are 2 levels, Editor Plus and Designer Plus. E+ has the MM and Wreath tools I discussed plus 55 different fonts, reshaping tools, alignment tools and stuff to keep you busy for some time AND INCLUDES some basic auto-digitizing. D+ has some specialty tools that fine tune digitized designs plus 60 fonts along with so many things I won't take the time to write here. Both levels have a basic quilt design program but I really don't use it much as I prefer my EQ5.

You can start out with E+ and upgrade to D+ later if you wish.

Explorations is Bernina compatible software that is much less expensive but given your originality, I think you may have more freedom with Artista V5.

I love playing with the software but don't know anythign about installation quirks. I don't have Vista but when I needed to install the software, I called OESD's tech line and told them I needed step by step instruction and they walked me through the process.

Keep us posted.

Wow, Nancy!!! Those are exactly what I was thinking of!!!! They might not be embroidery designs, but they ARE great inspiration!!! Thanks, MK

This may be of no help to Mary Kay for the particular project she is working on, but I wanted to share this website because I think it has some great designs for inspiration.
http://www.marquetry.co.uk/main/htmldesignlibrary/dl_display_normal.php?catergory=circular

These are marquetry designs that remind me of the old spirograph toy. You might want to also click on the "back to design library" link to check out some of the other designs.

Enjoy,
Nancy

Ok, Ladies! This has been an excellent learning experience for me!!!! (at least that is what I keep reminding myself!)

I have figured out that I have Editor Lite V4 (the original software that came with my 730). And I have spent a couple hours trying to install the software on my laptop (which runs on Windows Vista). It turns out that EL V4 is NOT compatible with Vista, so I am trying to figure out next steps. After spending an hour on Bernina's software support site (no luck here, just a continual endless loop), I am thinking that I will call my dealer tomorrow and find out if I can get EL V5 from her. Not sure is that is the right route, but I'll find out.

I have given thought to buying the more complex softare (DP V5, or something) but I think I would like to at least see what the basic version can do first.

We'll see! Dealing with challenges always builds character!

Mary Kay

florence wrote:
I hadn't thought about the Spirograph until just recently when I saw a quilt in the Hoffman Challenge show - so cool! It really is a neat toy - and just gets the quilter's creative juices flowing! Glad to hear that there is someone else out there that remembers this cool toy! Mary Kay