Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

SewCalGal has written a great tutorial on how to make a wine bottle vest. Check it out here! It’s a very cute idea and would make a great gift. It would also be fun to make it more personal with photos (or anything you like) printed on EQ Printable Fabric. Thanks for posting, SewCalGal!

This is a special bonus post for the EQ7 Summer Drawing Series Sew Along! For this mini lesson, we’ll use the four flowers we drew in the Block 3 lesson to create some fun variations! I’ll give you some hints on how to draw this block, but I won’t be writing out step-by-step instructions because I’d like you to give your new drawing skills a workout. Note: I have Auto Fill turned off for the following illustrations (which is why my patches are not cream colored). You can easily turn this function on and off using the Auto Fill button  on the Precision Bar. Click here to download the Mini Lesson PDF file. Wreathmaker When we drew Flower #2 we used the Wreathmaker tool on a single shape to create the flower. You can also use it on a group of selected shapes. With the Lesson 3 Block on the

An EQ7 feature you may not know about is Photo Patchwork Quilts. The style of quilts made with this feature are often called pixel quilts. They are super easy to do in EQ7. Click Quilt > New Quilt > Photo Patchwork > Import Image > Preview That’s it! So, here is my original photo. The more blocks you put in your quilt, the more detail from the photo will be visible, as you can see with the three different versions shown here. But, don’t forget, though, these blocks can add up fast. The third quilt has over 2550. Quite the sewing project! I think there are lots of possibilities for fun projects using this feature! If this inspires you to make something, let us know! Email photos to Heidi@electricquilt.com.

The Electric Quilt Company is closed today. We hope you have a wonderful and safe Independence Day! Also, enjoy this free EQ7 Fireworks Quilt download!

Werner was the founder/editor of the Patchwork Magazine in Germany, and spent 12 years of PR, Marketing and Design at Westfalenstoffe, after “early retirement” from GE. He published his first Foundation Piecing Patterns in 1995, using Publisher. EQ5 was a breakthrough for him and he used it with growing interest. He writes, “with EQ6 and EQ7 I discover new design techniques with every new pattern. I like it so much that I decided to write down my experience and share it with users. See my lessons and I hope you may also learn more.”   Not only does he have EQ lessons he is also offering a free project you can download here.               It’s adorable! I especially love the flowers! Thanks, Werner!

Welcome to the Block 3 post for the EQ7 Summer Drawing Series! We’ll start each month with a drawing lesson that focuses on one of the drawing styles available on the Block Worktable. Then, at the end of the month, we’ll have a link up post where everyone can show off a photo of their sewn block. That’s right, we’re not just drawing in this series, we’re SEWING too! Block 3 is drawn on the PatchDraw Block Worktable, just like Block 2. However, this time we’re going to work on the Appliqué tab. On the Appliqué tab, patches can be closed or open. Closed patches can be filled with fabric or solid colors. Open patches will be treated as thread, and can be colored with the Set Thread tool. For this lesson, we’ll be using the default drawing tools on the Appliqué tab. There are more drawing tools available (by

There were so many beautiful blocks in the first link up! I hope we have even more for Block 2! Here’s my block: The Pieced PatchDraw click-and-snap grids are so much fun to play with! If you haven’t already, try out one of the other grids (you have Rectangle, Circle, Arc, Eight Point Star, Kaleidoscope, and Octagon to choose from!). The Block 2 Mini Lesson uses the Eight Point Star grid. To Link Up Your Photo Scroll down to the comment form at the end of this post. Fill in your info and make sure you select an image for your comment (this will be the photo of your block). If you have a blog, make sure to add your site too. If you wrote a post for this block, please link directly to that post. Let’s visit each others’ blogs and all get to know each other! You can