Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Here in Northwest Ohio it’s been a little  cold lately…and it’s just going to get so much colder. Every year at  about this time, I start thinking about ways to keep kids busy inside all winter. Do you think EQ can help with this? Oh, of course it can! One idea for cold weather, or whenever, is quiet books. They are usually designed to keep little ones quiet and busy in church, the car, waiting at a restaurant, wherever. This book is very cute with it’s cut out felt shapes. You could do something similar using patterns in EQ7. For example if you check out Library > Block Library > 08 Overlaid > Embellished Alphabet, those blocks would be great for an alphabet quiet book. You could print the templates out from EQ7 and cut them out out felt…or of course, regular quilting fabric would be cute too. Jenny made

Here are some cute Halloween themed blocks for you! You can also download Happy Haunting for more Halloween fun. Happy Halloween! If this inspires you to make something, let us know! Email photos to Heidi@electricquilt.com.

About Daphne I began sewing as a young girl, making outfits for my dolls. I made my first quilt in 1980 and started teaching quilting classes in 1990. Quilting and fibre art started as a hobby, but has turned into my passion and my business! I have been designing quilt patterns since 1996. I have authored 5 quilting books and filmed an instructional DVD showcasing my Give & Take Appliqué™ technique. I also design patterns with new fabric collections for Northcott Fabrics and for several magazines. Teaching is one of the activities that feed my soul. The interaction with students is one of the joys in my life. I love meeting other people who share my passion for fabric and creativity. I present lectures and workshops for quilt shops and guilds, at major quilting events and festivals and online at Quilt University (www.quiltuniversity.com). I have two websites and a blog.

Here we are at block 3! Block #2448 *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 2448 and click Search. Our pretty block pops on screen! I’d like to show you a fun feature of BlockBase. Move your mouse cursor on top of the block and then right-click. In the context menu that appears, click Quick Quilt. A 4 x 4 quilt layout appears, filled with the selected block. What a wonderful way to quickly see what this block would look like in a quilt! I love the secondary design created at the sides & corners of this block. Click the X at the top-right corner of the window to close the quilt. With Block #2448 still selected, click the Print Block tool

It’s Link Up time again! Let’s see those #2741 blocks! Fabrics used: Dark Pink: Andalucia by Patty Young for Michael Miller Fabrics LLC.; Light Pink: Petal Pushers by Whistler Studios for Windham Fabrics; Light Green: Kawaii, Pretty Little Girl by Beverylann Stillwell for Northcott; Orange: Divine by Rosemarie Lavin for Windham Fabrics; White: Calypso by Maywood Studio Again, I’ll show you some of the other color variations I considered while planning my block. 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

Angela Pingel of Cut to Pieces is one of our EQ Gurus. She’s a modern quilter using EQ7 to make designing easier and she will have some great tips and ideas to share here on the EQ blog and on her Cut to Pieces blog. Angela recently designed and made a pillow top in EQ and wanted to share some images with us. She writes, “I  just completed a pillow top that I designed in EQ using the Flowering Snowball block in EQ.  It’s a fairly complicated block you all have in there so I thought you might want to see some pics of it being sewn.” Yes, we would! There are so many EQers that will really appreciate that you took the time to show this here on the EQ blog. Angela has taken some great photographs of how she put this block together. Check out the Cut to Pieces blog. Angela

Here at EQ central we are all rushing around getting ready to go to Houston for The International Quilt Festival (and Market). I’m sure some of you are going as well. What would be more suited for this huge quilt show than…fabric business cards?!? • You could use your EQ Printable fabrics to print your information then sew it to cardstock, or more fabric or, fusible web. So many possibilities  to make something really different and personal. • Or use EQ Peel & Stick Fabric. It comes with backing to feed through your printer, but you could just leave the backing on. That way the front would be fabric but it would be thick enough to use as a business card. An added bonus is that once give it out to someone they would be able to keep it as a business card or remove the backing themselves and use