Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

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

This contest is now closed. Winner is announced here. July’s Fabric of the Month is Morris Meadow by Barbara Brackman for Moda! Moda’s latest collection of William Morris’s Arts & Crafts designs reflects his observation of the English meadow ground. The color palette for the meandering florals is inspired by his passion for the shades of natural dyes. Morris Meadow gives you accurate reproductions with Morris’s signature detail for your quilts and decorating projects. A bundle of these fabrics will be given away to one lucky winner! Submit your EQ design featuring Morris Meadow below…all instructions and contest details are in this post. Good luck! To enter In order to enter for the giveaway you must submit a quilt using the current Fabric of the Month AND comment on at least one other person’s quilt you like by the end of the month. If you’re the first person to submit a quilt, make sure to come back and

Many optical illusion and 3D quilts can be designed with 60° triangles, which means you can use 60° triangle rulers! Also, if you’re interested in triangle quilts you may also want to check out Design & Discover – Quilts with Triangles! Let’s get started! Click Design a quilt from scratch Click either Horizontal Strip or Vertical Strip. (I’ll be using Vertical Strip.) Click the LAYOUT tab Under Select a strip style choose Points A If you don’t want your triangles to be 60° skip down to step 8. If you want 60° (isometric) triangles for a Strip Quilt: Use this calculator  to figure out the width and height you would need. For example, if your strip is 50 inches long, with 10 triangles they would be 5 inches on one side…because 50/10=5. According to the calculator if one side is 5 inches the width needs to be 4.33 inches.In other

Get ready for pure summertime fun! Piecing Palooza is a live, virtual event on June 29th for learning quilt piecing techniques and skills taught by expert instructors. Save your spot today for a day of playful piecing, exciting giveaways, and inspiration to fuel all your future projects. EQ’s Jenny Novinsky and Janice Frisch will be demoing Electric Quilt 8 (EQ8) and the new Judy Martin Log Cabins add-on at the event. Have a friend who wants to learn more about EQ8 before taking the plunge? Tell your quilty friends about this great opportunity to see EQ8 in action and ask questions from EQ staff members! Tell them to use code pp2eq8 to save $20 too! For those who already own EQ8, you’ll love the other classes available from excellent quilting instructors! The keynote speaker for the event is EQ user Shelley Cavanna of Cora’s Quilts. (Psst! You can find Shelley’s

          This post focuses on Beginner Basics for new EQ8 Users.  If you are new to EQ8, learning to save your design work is a big deal.  There is nothing more frustrating than designing a quilt block or quilt and then not being able to find it or thinking it has disappeared.  As I teach Beginner EQ8 classes across the country, I find Saving your Projects and Designs to be one of most important beginner basics to learn.  In this lesson, I am going to try to demystify projects and sketchbooks and how to save those precious designs. When you first open EQ8, it opens an UNNAMED project.  You can always tell the name of the project by looking in the top left for Windows and hovering on the top center for Mac.  It will say Untitled-EQ8. This is a fresh new Project with only default

Welcome to the EQ8 Block Spotlight series! Each month we highlight a block from the EQ8 Block Library with a few design ideas. Then we want you to show us what you can do with the block. We hope these posts will inspire you to try something new and expand your EQ skills! This month’s block: Nebraska Tulips Where to find it: 04 Classic Applique > Flowers On-Point Design ideas to get you started The colors in this block made me think of stained glass windows. So I paired the tulips with one of the stained glass blocks from the 03 Foundation Pieced > Stained Glass Blocks section of the library. What if you want to use this on-point block in a horizontal setting? The quickest way to add setting triangles to an on-point block is to use the Tilt Block option available in Serendipity. Add the new “tilted” block

Thank you to everyone who participated in May’s design challenge! Check out the wonderful entries we received here! Winners Two winners were selected randomly. Congratulations to…. Winner 1: Sonya Chinn Winner 2: Alice Hertel A Note from Heather Valentine Heather Valentine, the designer of this collection, has some words to share with all the participants! “Oh my goodness, I am absolutely floored by the incredible outpouring of creativity and imagination in your quilt design submissions! Seriously, each and every design is a work of art. It’s been such a joy to watch each quilt be submitted. Keep up the fantastic work my talented friends, because you’re rocking it! I look forward to following along and seeing your designs stitched up in Color Club.” – Heather Valentine  Honorable Mentions Don’t forget to look at all the amazing submissions to this challenge. Here are a few honorable mentions! More Chances to Win Vertex by QT Fabrics is June’s Fabric of