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Diane

Recent Posts by Diane

Book Giveaway and Discussion with Author, Jo Ann Lepore

Posted 01-24-2025 by | Posted in: Q&A  

Contest closed. Rita V. of Fort Collins, CO was the lucky winner!
Here’s what Rita would like to design: I would love to make a quilt for each of my great-nephews with the initial of each one’s first name!
Be sure to look at other comments, including some from the author herself! 

Thanks to all who participated. 

The Book

In 2022, EQ lover, Jo Ann Lepore, joined the faculty of the Mid Appalachian Quilt Retreat, held at Gettysburg College, in Pennsylvania. Her roommate that she was paired with at the retreat was already an author with Fox Chapel Publishing. One evening, after a long day of teaching, they were discussing what they each design and the roommate suggested Jo Ann write a book. As Jo Ann told me, “she’s not afraid of rejection,” so after she found the proposal forms on the company’s website, submitted a proposal, and within days received a message that there was definite interest in her idea!

The premise of the book was to look for charted, or pixelated, designs that could be recreated in fabric. Jo Ann surfed the internet, books, and Pinterest for ideas, and before she knew it, she had hundreds of possibilities. Having used EQ for many years, she went directly to her laptop and started drafting quilt designs. Within the software she can easily try out so many different colorways and placements of fabric making it the perfect way to experiment!

A Brief History

Asking when and how Jo Ann got into quilting, before the book was even dreamed about, I learned the answer is not straight forward, but very interesting! Although Jo Ann doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t sewing, for the record, she says that she’s been sewing since the age of 8 and took her first lesson when she was 9 years old. For her wedding, she made all of her bridal-party outfits and 185 table napkins, so that everything matched! Jumping ahead a few years, an extended family member opened a craft shop and after leaving a 13-year job in HR, Jo Ann finally had some time to get back to sewing to contribute to the craft shop. She started making soft-sculpture crafts, took a class to make large teddy bears, and met a new friend who soon after bought a quilt shop, so took piecing and quilting classes there. During one of those classes, the teacher recognized Jo Ann’s skill and invited her to teach at the shop. Simultaneously, this led to Jo Ann starting her own wholesale decorative-accessory business which she ended up owning and leading for over 25 years! All the while, she continued to teach quilting techniques around the region. Due to changes in the industry, she decided it was time for a change, so began quilting full time, teaching extensively, and entering competitive quilt shows!

Here are some pictures of items Jo Ann made and sold while running her wholesale business.

Using EQ Software

Wondering about her use of EQ, Jo Ann let me know she started with EQ4 and has upgraded ever since. She learned about the software through her intense exposure to the entire quilting industry. Specifically, she was looking to design original quilts for competition. She had no reservations about using computer software and noted that EQ has gotten easier with each version.

Here’s one of Jo Ann’s very first EQ designs that she entered into the 2014 Vermont Quilt Festival… and won 1st place!!

Back to the Book

Here is Jo Ann’s favorite single-charted heart quilt that “started it all” and was the inspiration for the book! In fact, she’d love to do another book with only heart designs! Fingers crossed, or should I say, “Cross your heart?!”

Having your own copy of this book, you’ll learn how to create custom quilt designs using the Picture Patchwork technique of turning a simple grid into a quilting work of art! The 15 projects in the book range from beginner to advanced. Here are a few examples of Jo Ann’s EQ designs that found their way into the book. Notice how each design starts with a bunch of small squares, or pixels, and once colored create a neat picture!

Sewing machine


No Strings Attached and L monogram       


Whale… I’m Lost

Inspired by her love of heart designs, it’s so easy to try out different options in EQ so here’s the same Heart Duo x 2 design with and without a border.

There are 15 unique and fun designs in the book which are sure to inspire!!

You can find Jo Ann’s book through Fox Chapel’s website and wherever you like to buy books. Follow Jo Ann on Instagram @sewjospecial or Facebook. And, if you find yourself in the Warren, New Jersey area on Wednesday, March 26 at 7pm, stop by the Pieced Together Quilt Guild to get a signed copy of the book by the author herself!

Giveaway!

The giveaway is closed. The winner will be announced this week. Thanks to everyone who submitted comments!

A copy of the book will be shipped to one lucky winner! To enter, submit a comment on this post letting us know what picture of yours, or one of Jo Ann’s designs, you’d like to make into a charted quilt. Giveaway closes 11:59pm ET February 2, 2025. Winner will be chosen at random and contacted via email. One entry per person. U.S. shipping only.

Tell us, what picture of yours, or one of Jo Ann’s designs, would you like to make into a charted quilt?

Deep Dive – Top 5!

Posted 09-19-2024 by | Posted in: EQ8   New Products  

EQ8 Deep Dive – Top 5 Released at the beginning of last month and featured in both of our August newsletters, we wanted to take a closer look, or dare we say a deeper dive ( ), into our new EQ8 Deep Dive: Fabrics, Panels, and Photos booklet! We created this 40-page, fully illustrated comprehensive guide based on requests from you, our incredible EQ users! The booklet will give you all the steps and tips needed to import and see your fabrics, panels, and photos in your quilts before you ever take out your scissors. Here we’re going to highlight the top 5 features explained in this wonderful new booklet! Without further ado, you’ll learn how to… 1. Take a picture of and import fabrics from your own stash! That’s right, you can take a picture of your stash with any camera and import it into EQ8 so you can see exactly what

Villa Rosa Designs Fast and More Fun Blog Hop – Winner Announced

Posted 03-25-2024 by | Posted in: Uncategorized  

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on our blog post! We’re so happy we could be part of such an inspirational and fun blog hop, including introducing some of you to EQ8 and how it can help you visualize your quilts! To see more of EQ8 in action, watch the EQ8-demo video! We had 332 people enter to win a copy of EQ8! One person was selected at random, and without further ado, congratulations goes to… PATIENCE B. After reading our post, here’s Patience’s comment, “Wow, this software is so cool. Being able to mock up the different fabrics and colors is so cool! Thank you for sharing!” Congrats again, Patience, now let your design adventure begin!! Seven other names were drawn at random and sent to Villa Rosa Designs to be entered into more giveaways. Check VRD’s page for a list of those winners. To enter the

EU designers, Annika Kornelis and Regina Grewe

Posted 03-14-2024 by | Posted in: EQ Designers  

Now that everyone can purchase EQ add-on downloads, we wanted to highlight two of our European designers! Annika Kornelis The first designer is Annika Kornelis from The Netherlands. Annika has a fun blog where she writes about quilting, in general, and her quilt designs created in EQ. The blog is named Stof Genoeg, which is Dutch for “plenty of material,” though I’m guessing she always has room for more! Check out her New Year’s EQ8 quilt design, Fantasy Chinese Dragon, made up of simple quilt blocks. When asked how and when she got into quilting, here’s Annika’s response. “My mother got into quilting when I was a girl, and she still quilts at 86! Out of her five kids, I am the only one who was interested in learning to piece and quilt. I sewed a log cabin block when I was 10 years old. Even when I was a

Electric Quilt and Quilts of Valor – Winners Announced!

Posted 07-12-2023 by | Posted in: Congratulations   Electric Quilt & Quilts of Valor®  

With so many stunning submissions, it wasn’t easy to choose, but following are the winners for the Electric Quilt + Quilts of Valor Foundation® (QOVF) event! To see why it was such a difficult decision, you can view all of the previous posts, including the glorious submissions here. Overall Winner The overall winner is Paco Rich with her perfectly patriotic “Race to the Stars” quilt, as seen above and in the February post!! Paco actually wrote a blog post on her own website about all of her QOV she’s made over the years which includes a pattern for this winning quilt! You can also see different pictures of the quilts she submitted in February, including veterans receiving their much-deserved gorgeous quilts, as part of her blog! Thank you Paco for supporting this incredible foundation and sharing your lovely work! QOVF Winner Christy Herzog’s “Kaleidoscope #3″ quilt is the QOVF’s selected winner! Christy submitted this

Electric Quilt and Quilts of Valor – Lori T.

Posted 07-04-2023 by | Posted in: Electric Quilt & Quilts of Valor®  

Hello and Happy 4th of July! It seems like only yesterday when we started this event, but a fruitful 8 months have passed. Teaming up with the Quilts of Valor Foundation® (QOVF) has been a great honor, and hearing from and seeing all of the submitted quilts has been the proverbial icing on the cake! Keeping with that theme, the cherry on top is each of the heartwarming stories and reasons for making these quilts that have been shared! We here at EQ value all of these special quilts, so that is why even though this event is ending (tonight at 11:59 ET), we’re creating a QOV Gallery so pictures of these sewn quilts can continue to be admired by others! They won’t be eligible for prizes, but believe the reward is in presenting and sharing the glorious quilts! (Stay tuned next week for more information about the QOV Gallery in our

Electric Quilt and Quilts of Valor – Rachelle C. and TeriAnn H.

Posted 06-04-2023 by | Posted in: Electric Quilt & Quilts of Valor®  

In November we announced that we’ve teamed up with the Quilts of Valor Foundation® (QOVF) for a special 8-month collaboration! Oh, how time flies when such special quilts are being highlighted, but you’ve still got 1 month to join this wonderful event! We’re requesting both an image of your EQ-software-QOV design and a picture of the accompanying finished Quilt of Valor®. For inspiration, be sure to view previous posts in this heartwarming series! Rachelle C. Rachelle Craig, of Rachelle Handmade, is a talented EQ designer and she has used those skills to create some striking QOV! Her design process is “very experimental and she usually tries many versions of a block before playing with the color palette” which EQ allows her to do easily. When Rachelle does finally play with colors, auditioning different patriotic colorways is also quick and fun using EQ software. Being involved in these projects and knowing that her designs may inspire someone to