Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

This contest is now closed. Winners announced here! April’s Fabric of the Month is Sea Breeze by Deborah Edwards and Melanie Samra for Northcott! Created by design duo Deborah Edwards and Melanie Samra in their classic alcohol ink style, Sea Breeze takes you away to another world where tranquility ensues in sunshine, warm sands, blue skies, and a gentle breeze. A bundle of these fabrics will be given away to two lucky winners! Submit your EQ design featuring Sea Breeze below…all instructions and contest details are in this post. Good luck!   Note: The Sea Breeze collection contains two panels (not included in the download). It is NOT required that you use the panels in your design, but if you’d like to, you can save the panel images below to your computer here. After saving and extracting the images to your computer, import them into EQ. We have a sample lesson for doing this in EQ8 here.  To enter

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on our blog post! We’re so happy we could be part of such an inspirational and fun blog hop, including introducing some of you to EQ8 and how it can help you visualize your quilts! To see more of EQ8 in action, watch the EQ8-demo video! We had 332 people enter to win a copy of EQ8! One person was selected at random, and without further ado, congratulations goes to… PATIENCE B. After reading our post, here’s Patience’s comment, “Wow, this software is so cool. Being able to mock up the different fabrics and colors is so cool! Thank you for sharing!” Congrats again, Patience, now let your design adventure begin!! Seven other names were drawn at random and sent to Villa Rosa Designs to be entered into more giveaways. Check VRD’s page for a list of those winners. To enter the

Hello Villa Rosa Designs followers! You’re here because today is our day to post in the Villa Rosa Blog Hop! Villa Rosa Designs creates “Fast & Fun” quilt patterns featuring pre-cuts like 1/2 yards, fat quarters, 10′′ squares, 5′′ squares, 2 1/2′′ strips, fat eighths, and fat sixths, as well as other fabric cuts, including panels. Tricia Maloney, known as the Orphan Quilter, who formats all of the Villa Rosa Designs, uses EQ8 for each one, and designs her own patterns in EQ8, too! EQ8 Giveaway AND other fabulous prizes! There are wonderful prizes available from the various sponsors for this blog hop, including a set of cards, fabric, patterns, notions, and other goodies! For our part, we’re giving away one EQ8! To be eligible for any of the prizes, please click on the Enter Giveaway button, fill out, and submit the form by Sunday, March 24, 2024. We will

I am desperate for spring to come.  I am tired of the gray and cold of winter.  Since I can’t change the weather, I will use my EQ8 to brighten my day by creating my spring quilt pillow design. Launch your EQ 8 program, make a new project, and name it ‘DESPERATE FOR SPRING’.  Click OK at the bottom of the box. Thinking ahead, I want to depict both the gray colors of winter with the bright first colors of spring flowers blooming.  I can accomplish this by using my EQ to create my fabric for the background and then adding applique fabrics to the foreground to show the contrast between the darkness and brightness of the days. The first step is to create the gray background fabric that I want to use.  I will use the EQ patterns in the library to design my fabric.  At the top of

We’ve recently added some new employees and so we had a quilting class (taught by Jenny) to make sure we all know how to quilt! (And maybe infect some newbies with the quilting bug ) For even more fun we thought we’d make the blocks from our sewing class into a sew-along! If you’d like to sew along with us and get more details about the project, check them out here. Each month, we’ll feature one staff member and their block in the quilt. This month we’re featuring Ben! Ben writes code for improving EQ software products and he’s been here about three years.  Ben says he likes working at EQ because of the people! “The team here were so welcoming when I started and continue to be a joy to work with.”             Ben hasn’t sewn much before. He said, “I’ve only patched some holes and put a button

Now that everyone can purchase EQ add-on downloads, we wanted to highlight two of our European designers! Annika Kornelis The first designer is Annika Kornelis from The Netherlands. Annika has a fun blog where she writes about quilting, in general, and her quilt designs created in EQ. The blog is named Stof Genoeg, which is Dutch for “plenty of material,” though I’m guessing she always has room for more! Check out her New Year’s EQ8 quilt design, Fantasy Chinese Dragon, made up of simple quilt blocks. When asked how and when she got into quilting, here’s Annika’s response. “My mother got into quilting when I was a girl, and she still quilts at 86! Out of her five kids, I am the only one who was interested in learning to piece and quilt. I sewed a log cabin block when I was 10 years old. Even when I was a

Two classes are already full! Have you saved your seat at EQ Academy yet? If you’re new to EQ Academy, we can’t wait to meet you! Here’s what you can expect… 1. Learning! EQ8 classes are offered Thursday, May 2, Friday, May 3, and Saturday, May 4. You can come for one day, two days, or all three! There are half-day classes and full-day classes to choose from. Take a class that’s based on quilt style like, New York Beauty Quilts, Medallion Quilts, T-Shirt Quilts, and Non-Traditional Quilts.   Take a class based on a technique or feature like FPP Block Drawing, Design with EQ8 and AccuQuilt GO, and Adding Photos and Fabric to EQ8.   Want a quick beginner class? We’ve got a half-day Intro to EQ8 Quilt Design class on Saturday!   2. Fun! We kick off the fun right away! Upon arrival to EQ Academy, you’ll be