The Electric Quilt Company is 30!

The Electric Quilt Company’s Story – How It All Began

We’re celebrating 30 years! Since the pearl is the traditional symbol for 30 years, we’re sharing EQ Pearls of Wisdom from our friends! See all Pearls of Wisdom posts. We hope you enjoy the tips and tricks you learn along the way and discover some new quilters or catch up with your favorites! Also, we’d love to hear about YOUR journey with EQ so feel free to tell us your story in the comments on any post! A big THANK YOU to all our customers for your support over the years. We’re looking forward to many more! 

This week’s featured friend: Christa Watson!

Tell us a bit about yourself Christa!

I’ve been an avid quilter for over 25 years. Quilting has been my full time job for the last 15 years, and I love traveling the world, teaching others how to make a quilt from start to finish. My specialty is teaching stress-free domestic machine quilting, and I love designing bold, bright fabrics and quilt patterns.

When did you start using Electric Quilt and how has it changed your quilting life?

I’ve been using EQ since 2006 and it has totally changed my quilting life! The ease of the program makes it possible for me to design any quilt I can think of. Because I work exclusively with my own fabrics that I design for Benartex, it’s a breeze to import my fabric swatches into the program so that I can see exactly what my quilts will look like before I ever make the first cut of fabric! I’ve included several images of a favorite quilt I designed in EQ, called “Interlinked.” Although I normally make bold, bright quilts, I was able to choose some of the neutrals from several of my fabric lines to make this interesting modern quilt. Using EQ for this design also allowed me to quickly recolor several versions of the quilt virtually so I could offer kits and alternate ideas for my students.

Interlinked Quilt designed by Christa in EQ

Interlinked variation

Interlinked variation

What is your EQ “Pearl of Wisdom” for EQ users?

My #1 tip for using EQ is to scale your fabrics if needed. Again, this is super useful to me as a fabric designer. When I get the final files of my digital fabric images from my fabric company, I’m able to import them into EQ and then set the proper scaling so that when I design my quilts, everything is proportioned correctly. Also, because I usually send out swatches of my fabrics to other quilt pattern designers months ahead of when the fabric will arrive in shops, I’m able to send them correctly scaled fabrics, too. It makes a huge difference knowing how your project will look if you can scale fabrics to their proper size. And related to this, I love that I can send digital images of my fabrics to other designers who use EQ for their quilt pattern designs, too!

What are you up to now and what do you have coming up?

I’m excited about my NEXT fabric line that will be in shops in November of 2021. It’s called “Black, White & Bright” and of course I’ll be sharing digital images with EQ so that you all can have access to them.

Christa’s new fabrics are our Fabric of the Month for November! Download them for your EQ and enter to win a bundle!

Black, White & Bright fabrics

I’m also very excited about a teaching trip to Spain that I will be hosting in conjunction with CraftTours and Craftsy. For more details about these upcoming events and what I’m up to on a daily basis, you can follow me on Instagram @christaquilts. You can also check out my website where I have tons of free tutorials along with lots of quilting tips and tricks. And if you are interested in finding my fabrics and patterns, you can get those at my shop.

Interlinked

Giveaway

My free EQ quilt project file is called “Puzzle Box” a fun design made from 2 strip rolls of my current fabric collection called Good Vibes. Of course it would look great in any other fabrics, too! You can also get the free PDF pattern to go along with it from my free patterns page on my website here.

Download the project here!

Puzzle Box by Christa for EQ

Hope you enjoyed this “pearl” of wisdom. Feel free to share your EQ story or a “pearl” of your own in the comments! Stay tuned for our next post!

View all Pearls of Wisdom posts >>

We are nearing the end of our 30th anniversary year. We’re going to celebrate with a special slideshow of 30 EQ user-designed quilts! Want your quilt to be considered for the show? Add photos of your EQ design and finished quilt to the gallery by December 15th! View the Quilt Gallery >>