Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

                                          Yes. Today is Nation Dog Day! To honor the man and woman’s best friend we wanted to share this EQ7 designed quilt from user Jean Rhubin. Enjoy!

One of users, Marie Trimmer is a long time EQ fan. Marie says, “I have been a user of your software since it was an old DOS program and I wanted to say that I love your design programs. I don’t claim to be a computer wiz but even I can use it. I was doing a block of the month program for our guild and it had been years since we did an applique quilt so I decided to plan the entire quilt as applique. Once again I turned to my EQ6  for patterns and found what I was looking for. There was a few blocks I was looking for that I couldn’t find so ended up drawing a few myself.     When the quilt was finished I took it to the guild and the response was amazing. All of a sudden the people who didn’t want to attempt

This is a special bonus post for the EQ7 Summer Drawing Series Sew Along! For this mini lesson, we’ll try out a couple of drawing tools on the Appliqué tab that we haven’t used yet in this series. I’ll give you some hints on how to draw this block, but I won’t be writing out step-by-step instructions because I’d like you to give your new drawing skills a workout. Note: Make sure your Precision Bar settings are the same as they were when you drew the Block 4 lesson—on the Appliqué tab make sure all the snap settings and Auto Fill  are turned ON. Click here to download the Mini Lesson PDF file. With the Block 4 design on your worktable, and the Applique tab selected, delete the four appliqué patches using the Pick tool . Click the Bezier Curve tool . Draw a curve that starts at the grid

One of our users, Claire Haillot, recently emailed us about a project she started. Claire says, “On July 6, the small town of Lac Mégantic, Québec had a major train derailment of oil. The tankers blew up and basically decimated the center of town, as well as killing 47 innocent people. It is a tragedy. The town has rallied and has had a lot of support from across the world, but it will takes years to rebuild and for the people effected, some will never get over this.  A friend and I are organizing the collection of flags ( like the ones made for Boston after the marathon bombings) which will be displayed at Lac Mégantic in the fall to let the community know that they have the support of people around the world. There is a link with all the details, which has directions on how to make the flags and

Corey Yoder of Little Miss Shabby says, “I love EQ–use it almost every day!…I would be completely lost designing quilts without using EQ!” She certainly is doing a great job! Here are some of Corey’s EQ7 quilts. There are tutorials available for all of them too!           Corey also had a block featured in Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks, and she even made the cover! Of course the block was designed in EQ7! Then she made different quilt variations in EQ7 with her block. It’s so fun (and helpful) to see so many options. Corey has also had quilts published in Easy Quilts, Stitch Craft Create, Quilt, Stitch, McCall’s Quilting, American Patchwork and Quilting,  Pillow Pop, Sew to Swap  and Fat Quarterly. She also has a lot of great work on her site, including a new quilt block and free pattern that were just posted today. She also

Welcome to the Block 4 post for the EQ7 Summer Drawing Series! It’s the last block in this drawing+sewing series and I hope you’ve learned a lot about the EQ7 Block Worktable along the way. Block 4 is drawn on the EasyDraw + PatchDraw Block Worktable. This kind of block combines both pieced and appliqué elements. For the pieced layer of the block, EasyDraw tools are used (like Block 1). And for the appliqué layer of the block the Appliqué PatchDraw tools are used (like Block 3). Remember that EasyDraw is like drawing with paper and pencil; we draw lines or curves and EQ7 creates the patches. And with the PatchDraw Appliqué tools we can draw closed or open patches. Closed patches can be filled with fabric or solid colors. Open patches will be treated as thread, and can be colored with the Set Thread tool. You can find more

How did everyone do with their appliqué blocks? I choose to make one of the variations from the Block 3 Mini Lesson. To Link Up Your Photo Scroll down to the comment form at the end of this post. Fill in your info and make sure you select an image for your comment (this will be the photo of your block). If you have a blog, make sure to add your site too. If you wrote a post for this block, please link directly to that post. Let’s visit each others’ blogs and all get to know each other! You can link up your Block 3 photo at any time. But for those who link up by Monday, August 5, 2013, 9 am EST, you’ll be entered in a little giveaway! One lucky winner will receive a priority mail envelope filled with fabric scraps. Because who doesn’t need a little