Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Traveling to sewing shows in the Spring and Fall is always a really busy time for me.  This week I go to Toronto, Ontario, Canada to teach at the Creative Festival.  After that I go to the Houston International Quilt Festival to teach EQStitch  and EQ7 classes.  The very best part of the traveling is that I get to meet so many people and hear what they are doing with the program.  They also share with me the types of lessons they want to have in the future.  That is really helpful for me.  The worst part of traveling is that I am away from my sewing machine and don’t have time to test sew my design ideas. I recently taught a machine embroidery class in which we made fobs.  You can see these at my groups website under the September class heading.  http://members.shaw.ca/lmeg/  These quick and easy little projects

Have you received your newest issue of Quiltmaker yet? Grab your copy and check out the EQ7 Creative Spark feature on page 38! This feature focuses on the fabric coloring tools. Using the Fussy Cut  and Rotate Fabric  tools, you can see exactly what your finished quilt will look like! Visit Quiltmaker’s site to see the companion EQ7 lesson for the article: EQ7 Fussy Cut and Rotate Fabric Tools

It’s the last week of Marian Pena’s EQ Row-A-Long! Don’t forget you can download the rows and the EQ7 block library HERE. Also, be sure to check out what people have been making in the Flickr group, and the Facebook group is also great for more info and pictures, too!       This week we have Show and Tell! Check out what all these talented quilters have made from these rows! Doris Rice from Quilting Queen Online  Jennifer Ofenstein from Sewhooked Reeze Hanson from Morning Glory Designs Loreen Bogdan from School House Quilts Carol Swift from Just Let Me Quilt Carla Henton from Creatin In The Sticks Marlene Baerg Oddie from Kissed Quilts Amy Warner from Sew Incredibly Crazy Nancy Myers from Patchwork Breeze Marian Pena from Seams To Be Sew Darlene Quilshop Gal – and she also has another row available as well as a tutorial on creating rows

The Ellipse Tool The Ellipse tool draws ellipses, pies and arcs as geometric objects. These objects can be shaped and edited within the limits of the mathematical properties controlling their shape. Use Convert to patch to change the object into a set of Bezier curves. 1. Position the cursor at the approximate location you want your ellipse to start. 2. Press the left mouse button and drag diagonally until the ellipse is the size you want. 3. Release the mouse. 4. Reshape as desired by adjusting the nodes surrounding the ellipse. 5. Click the Convert to patch   button on the Precision Bar to change the rectangle into a set of Bezier curves. Please note: You can constrain the ellipse to a perfect circle by holding down the Ctrl key as you drag. The Precision Bar can be used to partition the ellipse into sections. It can also be used to

Wow! 10 weeks of Sunday Stitch all ready!  My goodness the time is really going by fast. Time is the number one commodity I can never quite get a grasp on.  It seems like I am always rushing to get things accomplished.  Somedays, I think I have a moment of brillance hit me but I don’t have time to develop it right then.  So here is a little tip I will share with you  if you have the same problem of time getting away from you. I have a project file I created called ‘practice folder’.  I set it up in my EQStitch and then when an idea hits me, I quickly try to work out a simple design with the idea I have and place it in the sketchbook in my ‘practice folder’ project file.  This way I can go back and open the sketchbook and look at what

Coloring books for adults have become super popular recently. It’s a great way to relax! Did you know that you can easily create your own coloring pages with EQ7? You can make your own coloring pages from both the Block and Quilt Worktables. Grab some blocks from the Block Library that you’d like to color, then edit one of the blocks to the Block Worktable: Click Print > Block. In the Print Block dialog box, type in a size for your coloring block (8″ x 8″ usually works well for 8.5″ x 11″ letter size paper, depending on your printer’s allowable margins). Then, under Printing Style, choose Outline drawing. Click the Preview button to see what your coloring page will look like. And there’s the coloring page! Click the Print button. It’s just as easy from the Quilt Worktable! With the quilt displayed on the worktable: Click Print > Quilt.

October’s Fabrics of the Month are from Nortcott’s new line called “Lumberjack.” Download these fun flannels for your EQ7 here. They’re free