The summer issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited is now available! It’s chocked full of Electric Quilt goodies, designers and information!
Patio by Jennifer Schifano Thomas of Curlicue Creations is included. The quilt is so cute! She designed it in EQ7. Jennifer says, “My design process usually starts the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper. After that, I take it to the EQ design program and that’s where my ideas really bloom! Patio started out as just some simple blocks with yellow rectangles. It was ALL yellow in the beginning. I changed the block design, until I was happy with that (I especially like the look this quilt has where the corners of the blocks come together). Then I got to do my favorite part, play with the color! As a child I always wanted to have “all the colors”. All the crayons, all the magic markers, all the paint, all the colored pencils, etc. With EQ I can have all the colors! The fabrics on the program are fantastic.  I often download the fabric palette of the month and play with that, plus I import fabrics from design collections that I want to use in my quilts. It’s endless color, texture, and emotion. Patio went through many color variations before I decided on the final design.”
Elizabeth Dackson from dontcallmebetsy.com also designs in EQ7. And so does her son! Elizabeth says, “Ryan also loves to play with [the] Electric Quilt program, and has even taught [me] some things about the software, like how to flip blocks.”
Mary Puckett of zippyquilts.wordpress.com had her quilt featured as well. She designed it and said, “I’m now on my 3rd or 4th version of EQ–not sure which. I love it! I use EQ for drawing blocks, designing quilts, and trying out various fabrics for quilts.  Sometimes I scan in my fabric and sometimes I go to fabric manufacturers’ sites and grab their pictures of fabric for my designs…Using EQ, I can try out multiple alternatives for my designs in FAR less time than if I had to do it all by hand.” You can read more about Mary here.
And a lesson from me! I use a Wedding Ring block in various layouts, with block modifications and lots of other tricks. You can check out the step-by-step lesson here. You can also download the EQ7 project with all the quilts!