EQ8

CHALLENGE CLOSED! WOW! We are SO impressed with all the entries… EQ users are SO talented. Thank  you to all the participants! Freebies from Christa Free pattern Christa’s “Beaded Lanterns” pattern (colored with Fandangle fabrics) is FREE for you! Click here to download the PDF. Free EQ8 project Since Christa designed “Beaded Lanterns” in EQ8, she’s also giving you the EQ8 project download so you can open it and play! Click here to download the EQ8 project. Find Fandangle Christa also included a list of shops that are carrying Fandangle just in case any of you want to find it! The list is on Christa’s blog here. On to the Winners! I think this was our toughest challenge to pick winners! Somehow, we narrowed down our favorites and here they are….. Overall Winner: Betsy EQ Honorable Mention: Janet B. Christa’s Honorable Mention: Mel B. The three winners will receive the

Whole cloth quilting can be accomplished by stitching free motion, in the embroidery hoop, or by printing templates and transferring the design to the quilt top to stitch through.  The choice is yours.  EQ8 aids us in this adventure of whole cloth quilting by providing stencil blocks in the Block Library built into the program. The EQ8 program gives us a visual of how the whole cloth quilt will look when stitched.  You can always change the layout once you start working on the quilt material itself.  For instance, on the quilt pictured above, I would not create a stencil for this wavy line border.  I would most likely use the serpentine stitch on my machine at maximum width and length and repeat the rows one beside the other stitching with my walking foot until the outer border was filled to my satisfaction.  I like to use this visual reference

If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ll notice that each year around this time, we have a cute little visitor to our site: It’s our friend, Sunbonnet Sue, and she has the very important job of decorating the tree each year! She holds a special place in our hearts here at EQ and I thought I’d share a little bit about her story today. Penny McMorris & Dean Neumann, EQ founders The Sunbonnet Sue animation was created by Dean Neumann, EQ co-founder and programmer. She made her first appearance on our site back in 1996, shortly after our first website was launched. EQ3 was our current version of the software at that time. EQ3 could only export PCX files (PiCture eXchange) for images. Dean made the animation by drawing individual blocks on the Block Worktable for each of the movements. He exported a PCX for each block and

Using Panels! A question that we get a lot is how to use panels in quilts. So, that is what we are doing this month! Here is the quilt I created. Download the EQ8 project here. I used Petit Fleurs Alphabet Blocks Fabric Panel by Carolyn Gavin for Windham Fabrics. (There is a whole line of fabrics that go along with it and I think they are adorable.) First I searched the internet to get a full image of the panel. (If you are using a panel you already have and can’t find the image on the internet you can take a picture of it on your phone and email it to yourself.) I saved the image to my desktop. Now, open EQ8. Click Libraries > Photo Library (Here is more information on when to import something as a fabric and when to import it as a photo.) Click the

Today’s post ends our Top 10 Favorite Features list! Click here to see all 10 features. #1 – Enhanced User Interface! A Look Back Electric Quilt software, developed by EQ President Dean Neumann, was first released as a DOS program back in 1991. The quilting world quickly took to this new way of designing quilts. The software was first introduced on The Great American Quilt, a PBS television show hosted by Dean’s wife and co-owner of Electric Quilt, Penny McMorris. Here’s a clip from the episode introducing Electric Quilt 1. Keep in mind…everything was done on the keyboard, as computers did not use mice yet! Can you imagine? Evolving Technology Over the years, Dr. Neumann continued to add features to the software based on the needs of our customers. The software became more and more full-featured and brilliant with each release; and more people started using EQ for casual and

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing our top 10 favorite features in EQ8. Subscribe to this blog and follow us on social media (Facebook and Instagram with #EQ8Top10) to see all 10! See the complete list of features on our website. #2 – See a Large Preview of the Fabric! The fabric palette is full of small swatches of your fabrics and colors that are currently in your Sketchbook. Because the swatches are small, it’s often hard to tell what the print really looks like when making your selection. In EQ8, you can now see a larger preview of the selected fabric while you’re designing! With the Fabric Tools selected, click on the Detach button in the fabric preview. This will remove the fabric preview from the palette, and open it in a small window on your screen. You can move and resize this window in an empty

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing our top 10 favorite features in EQ8. Subscribe to this blog and follow us on social media (Facebook and Instagram with #EQ8Top10) to see all 10! See the complete list of features on our website. #3 – Applique Patchmaker Tools Create stars, posies and quilting stencils with simple-to-use controls. No drawing involved! These new applique tools make creating these shapes easy and fun! These new tools will be available when you choose the Shapes tool on an applique block or motif (StencilMaker only available for Motifs). StarMaker Play around with the settings to see the different star shapes you can create! PosieMaker Quickly fill a basket with different kinds of flowers! StencilMaker (only available for motifs) Add these original stencil designs to layer 3 of your quilt! See the complete list of features on the Electric Quilt website.