Welcome to our new blog series, Do You EQ Too? Each month, we will spotlight a different EQ user and their quilts! If you haven’t already, you can read our introduction post here.

Carol Rubin

The first quilter we’d like to spotlight is Carol Rubin! Carol currently uses EQ8 but first started with EQ6. Last month, she shared her experience sewing a Dear Jane quilt during the Covid-19 pandemic and we knew we had to share her story! For Carol, sewing became an extra source of comfort and provided helpful distraction from her anxiety.

“While locked down at home during Covid 19,” says Carol, “I saw that EQ8 came out with computerized patterns for the famous Dear Jane quilt, and I thought that if I decided to do one block each day it might be the thing to get me out of bed in the mornings. This worked very well as each evening I planned the next day’s block, selecting the fabric, and then when I went to bed, instead of worrying about the pandemic, I fell asleep planning which technique I would use to make the block in the morning.”

A corner label from Carol’s Dear Jane quilt

In about 169 days, Carol was able to complete all the blocks needed for her Dear Jane quilt! During this time, she began to better understand how Jane A. Stickle might have felt while sewing her original quilt.

“I grew to appreciate what Jane Stickle had gone through during the Civil War, although my isolation and uncertainty was far less that what she had suffered. I did the sashing, the border, the quilting, and the binding to create a large queen-size quilt. The only fabric that I needed to purchase was for the backing and the binding, the rest of it was made from scraps in my stash, and the background fabric from old sheets.”

However, after finishing her quilt, Carol unfortunately noticed some fabric bleeding had occurred. She quickly went to work to remove the stains, though the process took a humorous turn.

“I needed to use a bathtub for soaking the quilt, and we have a large Jacuzzi type jetted whirlpool bathtub. Well, what the jets did was create a mountain of suds that quickly started to overflow the tub. I stopped the jets and grabbed a bucket and started removing the suds and dumping them in the shower stall, for lack of any other place to put them. But the pile of suds kept growing as the shower stall filled. Finally it all calmed down and I noticed that the water was a dark blue.”

After hours of repeating the washing process, Carol’s quilt was “sparkling bright with no bleeding.” With only a few repairs needed, her Dear Jane quilt was complete!

“I inspected it thoroughly and fixed all the places that needed some repair. I am so pleased with the way it looks now!”

Carol’s finished Dear Jane quilt

Thank you so much Carol for sharing your story with us! You can read her full story at the bottom of this blog post.

Tell us your story!

To be considered for our next spotlight, write a brief comment below and attach an image of an EQ-designed quilt or project you’re proud of! You can also tag us @theelectricquiltcompany on Instagram or @ElectricQuilt on Facebook, or use our hashtags #EQ8 and #DoYouEQ.

Each month we will select a quilter from all the submissions we’ve received. So if you weren’t picked this month, you can still be featured in future months!

Join us next month as we spotlight another quilter! View all Do You EQ Too? posts >>
See a few of June’s submissions below!