Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Valentine’s Day will be here before we know it, so now is the perfect time to make a printables project!  Have you seen fabric postcards? They are perfect for Valentine’s Day. Check some out from Pinterest. Or, here are some ideas on how to incorporate photos into fabric valentines. And, this wonderful website EverythingEtsy.com has a list of 101 free Valentine’s Day Printables. Here are just 4 examples of 101! And, of course, not only can you use EQ Printables for your fabric postcards, you can design your postcards in EQ7 as well. Here are a few I came up with. Embellish with embroidery, buttons, beads, felt…so many wonderful and adorable options. You can download the EQ7 project, here. If this inspires you to make something, let us know! Email photos to Heidi@electricquilt.com.

Welcome to Block 8 of the sew along! This time I’m going to give you a choice between two blocks: Block #1407a OR Block #1401 Essentially these two blocks look the same. But you’ll notice that the first block has set-in seams, while the second does not (therefore making it easier to piece!). However, I’m not just giving you the option to construct this block in a two different ways, I’m using this as an opportunity to show you a nifty tool in Block Base! *Remember, if you’re keeping all your sew along blocks in the same project, open the project now so you can add this new block.* Open BlockBase and click the Search by Number tool. Type in 1407a and click Search. The block appears on the Search Results tab. Now we’re going to try out a tool we haven’t used yet during the sew along. Click on

It’s Block #1774 link up time! We started 2013 out with a doozy—65 patches in this block! I’ve been making my sew along blocks in two sizes- 5″ and 10″. I think you can guess which size I choose for this block. I promise block #8 will be a bit more tame! 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 7 photo at any time. But for those who link up by Monday, January 21,

A very popular Pinterest project is a family Birthday Board. Very cute and practical too! Just like the example shown, the boards usually have the word “Birthdays” or “Family Birthdays” painted somewhat largely on the board. Then “JFMAMJJASOND” which are the initials of all the months of the year, towards the bottom. The idea is that you have a bunch of wooden circles. Each circle has one family member’s name and date of birth.  So if your birthday is April 14th, you would have your name and the number 14 on a circle. Then you would hang it under the first A (for April). It’s a great idea…and of course you could make it with wood and paint…BUT, why do that when you can make a quilt version?! When I was designing this project in EQ7, I started with the Alphabet (Modified) blocks from the EQ7 library and simplified them

    Check out the new February/March issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine!     UPDATE: The quilt on the cover is by Deb Karasik. She designed the quilt in EQ7 and has been using EQ software for over 10 years. Read more about her, and her quilt on page 60. You can also check out more of her vibrant, gorgeous work on her website, debkarasik.com. Congrats Deb!     Also, this lesson has some great tips for drawing realistic appliqué in EQ7, and drawing EQ appliqué in general. The article, by Andrea Bishop, has step-by-step instructions for drawing a particular, somewhat complex, block. Learning how to draw that individual block, along with the tips, will teach you how to almost any appliqué block. Don’t miss it!

Simonetta Marini: Designer, Teacher and Quiltmaker I am Italian and I live with my husband, two teenagers and two cats in Bologna, home of the oldest University in the world and mother of tortellini and mortadella. Here in Bolonga I work with my husband in our Studio as Engineer and Architect: we project houses and calculate them to resist to earthquakes. I have been quilting for 15 years. I saw “How to Make an American Quilt” with Winona Ryder and then, after some time, I began to read magazines where I saw wonderful quilts and thought: thatʼs my destiny! I bought a sewing machine and I began to try to quilt. It was love with the very first quilt. So I began to take classes, read books, created and then taught others. A real passion was born. I am a member of the Italian National Guild Quilt Italia and it wasn’t long before I became its regional Coordinator with the

Yes! Margaret’s EQ7 designed quilt, Sunset on the Water, is featured in the upcoming McCall’s Quilting March/April 2013 issue. Make sure you pick up a copy and get the pattern. See the Sunset on the Water feature page on McCallsQuilting.com and then enter to win an EQ7 from McCall’s! If you’ve paid attention, you’ve seen a lot of Margaret in 2012 magazines. She’s always busy with an EQ project here. Sometimes, in the EQ office, we joke about “checking on Margaret” because she’s often in her sewing room designing away with EQ7 or meticulously working on a quilt project. And everytime we do check in on her we find at least one new quilt or pillow finished and folded perfectly on the sewing table. Nearly every time one of use opens it and thinks, “Why is this beautiful quilt just sitting here!?” If we never dug through her piles of quilts, we wouldn’t