Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

EQ user, Deb Crine was featured in the May/June issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited. Her quilt, Desert Daze, is also featured on our main page. You can visit her website to see more. Her work is colorful, modern and pretty amazing! Congrats to Deb on being featured!

Welcome to the Block 1 post for the EQ7 Summer Drawing Series! We’ll start each month with a drawing lesson that focuses on one of the drawing styles available on the Block Worktable. Then, at the end of the month, we’ll have a link up post where everyone can show off a photo of their sewn block. That’s right, we’re not just drawing in this series, we’re SEWING too! ———————– Block 1 is drawn on the EasyDraw Block Worktable. EasyDraw is the simplest way to draw a pieced block in EQ7. You can draw straight lines and curved arcs in EasyDraw. The one rule you have to follow when drawing in EasyDraw is to make sure that your lines and arcs touch one another OR the block outline. If you’d like to read more information about the basics of EasyDraw, I highly recommend checking out the EQ Lesson titled EasyDraw

Is everyone ready to share their finished BlockBase Sew Along quilts?! Here’s mine: My layout is made up of four 10″ blocks and nine 5″ blocks. I settled on this layout and then realized I had one too many 10″ blocks, so I ended up making a new block at 5″. It’s block #1279: And I decided to put my label on the front (printed on EQ Printables, of course!): This quilt is a bit busy, so I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to quilt it. After discussing it with our office quilting expert, Margaret, I decided to quilt horizontal and vertical lines in the big blocks and X’s in the small blocks. I really like it! (You can see more of Margaret’s wonderful work here and here.) Now it’s your turn– let’s see those finished quilts! To Link Up Your Photo Scroll down to the comment form at

Spring is in the air! We are loving these cheerful photos in a quilt by Janet Quam. She writes: “Here is a quilt I designed in EQ7 and made using my photos printed on EQ Printables Cotton Satin Inkjet Fabric Sheets.  The tulips in Skagit Valley are out and beautiful this month.” ~ Janet Quam View Janet’s quilt in the EQ Quilt Gallery and don’t forget to leave her a comment! Shop EQ Printables Fabric Sheets

Bea Lee is hosting a Blog Hop! I drew some blocks to be included in the hop. Download here. The theme is Appliqued Animals and she also has three sub-themes which are, Summer Animals, Critters and Bugs, and Summer garden “stuff”. Lots of other EQ users are also participating in the hop. Seamstobesew Freemotionbytheriver Sewincrediblycrazy Kissedquilts Funthreads Patchworkbreeze Janesquilting SewCalGal Beaquilter Be sure to check out their blogs and collect the free blocks! You could also win some EQ software! (See the above  blogs for details.)   Another aspect of the blog hop is trying to learn tips and techniques from other users. So, here is how I drew my blocks. First the shiba inu (Aevi) block…I searched the internet for a picture of a shiba inu. I decided on this one.   Open EQ7. Click Block > New Block > PatchDraw Motif.   Click the Tracing Image tab at

Almost time to get the boat in the water (we hope!). Think “summer” with this applique block collection from Angie Padilla, available at MyEQBoutique.com.

BeaQuilter.com is hosting a blog hop and it’s on it’s fourth day. There are some adorable blocks here! If you aren’t already in on the fun, please sign up or go check out these cute Appliqué Animals. Get inspired!