EQ welcomes its newest EQ Artist, Sarah Maxwell of Designs By Sarah J!

Sarah has been using EQ to design many quilts that have been featured in several magazines as well as for Marcus Fabrics. She also has her own fabric designs! Below is a write up from Sarah about one of her favorite quilts designed in EQ featuring her fabric line, A Shout, a Whisper, a Text.

“When I designed the Shout line, I knew I wanted to feature a pattern that merged a traditional block with a modern sense of design. I also wanted to use every fabric in my line in the quilt (of course!)

Since I’ve always loved shoo fly, churn dash and monkey wrench variations, I downloaded those blocks from my EQ block library and started playing.

With 18 fabrics in the line, the shoo fly block just didn’t have enough patches to handle all the colors and prints in a pleasing layout.

Monkey wrench was better since it divided the center squares into two parts, but I still needed more positions for fabrics.

So, I started wondering what would happen if I added more pieces to the monkey wrench block without disrupting it’s overall shape. After lots of experimenting, I added one diagonal line from corner to corner of the block. Then, the fun really began as I experimented with light and dark color combos and placing those combos into various settings.

The diagonal rainbow progression of colors came together very quickly.

Dashing Spectrum by Sarah Maxwell

Dashing Spectrum finishes at 72″ x 84″.  This is my favorite type of quilt–it looks complex and difficult, but it’s actually very simple piecing.

Like most quilters today, my days are filled with competing demands and deadlines. Electric Quilt lets me make the most of my design time. Because I can import my fabric images, I can quickly audition ideas and “see” what they will look like before I ever cut or sew a piece.”

- EQ Artist, Sarah Maxwell

Check out Sarah’s EQ Artist profile and visit her website to see more of her fabulous designs!