Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

This contest is now closed. Winner announced here! Summer is almost here, so let’s celebrate with another EQ Design Challenge! June’s Fabric of the Month is At Day’s End by Sarah Maxwell for Andover. At Day’s End is Sarah’s story of the perfect sunset interpreted onto fabric! You can find these beautiful fabrics at your favorite quilt shop this September. A bundle of these fabrics will be given away to one lucky winner! Submit your EQ design featuring At Day’s End 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 comment on someone else’s quilt before the contest ends. Instructions for how

Using up scraps when creating new blocks is a great way to try something new.  When scrappy quilts are made, you can easily use more than one block style and mix and match them with similar-sized blocks.  Since it is all scraps everything will work.   But sometimes, I find they can be very ‘busy’ looking.  A good way to mix multiple blocks without all the scrappy colors is to make the blocks monochromatic in color.  This calms the business of the design. Open your EQ8 program, create a new project, and name it ‘Calm Down Busy Patterns’.  Click the OK at the bottom of the project helper box. Click on LIBRARIES>Block Library at the top of the screen. Browse through the Block Library categories and choose a few blocks that have lots of little pieces to them.  Add them to the sketchbook.   Click on the quilt worktable icon on

This year the EQ staff is making a quilt! We’ve added some new employees, so we wanted to make sure everyone knows how to sew and quilt. Each month, we’re featuring one staff member and their block in the quilt. (It just so happens we have 12 staff members!) If you’d like to sew along and get more details about the project, check them out here. This month we’re featuring Courtney! Courtney started at EQ with an internship in the beginning of 2020 and was officially hired as a full-time employee shortly after, so she has been at EQ for 4 years. She works as a software developer and is part of the team that develops software for both Windows and Mac platforms, as well as helps to find and fix bugs, and tests software. Courtney says, “I really enjoy being part of a small team working together to produce

Welcome to the EQ8 Block Spotlight! 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: June Autograph Where to find it: 02 Contemporary Pieced >Signature Block Variations Design ideas to spark your creativity Don’t count these blocks out, just because they have a signature space in the middle! There’s still lots of potential, whether you use the block as-is, or edit on the Block Worktable to remove or change the signature space. My first quilt is a 4 x 4 horizontal layout. There are four full June Autograph blocks in the center. For the blocks along the outside of the quilt, I removed some patches so I could create the

What a fun weekend! A huge thank you to all the students who joined us at EQ Academy last weekend—what a great time we had! A special thanks to our awesome teachers: Lori Miller, Nancy Roelfsema, Jenny Novinsky, Sara Seuberling, and Janice E. Frisch! Classes were wonderful as always and students learned so much. Scroll down for photos and info about our next EQ Academy. Here are some of the quilts the beginners learned to design! How cool are these?! STUDENT REVIEWS: “For a year, I played with EQ8 with minimal instruction/education. I had some success but more frustration than anything. All that changed this week at EQ Academy. I’m thrilled with how much I’ve learned and will definitely tell my friends about it!” “EQ is a fantastic software program for ANY quilter! But, it’s more than that—it is the PEOPLE behind it—helpful, friendly, just a great group. Thank you

Thank you to everyone who participated in last month’s design challenge! Your quilts are so beautiful, be sure to view them all here. Winners Two winners were randomly selected. Congratulations to…. Winner 1: Cynthia Concha Winner 2: Christy J Honorable Mentions Don’t forget to look at all the amazing submissions to this challenge. Here are a few honorable mentions! We also wanted to share that Leigh Headington of Sweet Tea Girls Patterns used EQ8 to design two of the quilt designs shared on Northcott’s website for the collection! How cool! More Chances to Win Live Boldly by Charisma Horton for Timeless Treasures is May’s Fabric of the Month! Download the collection and enter our design challenge for another chance to win some fabric!

This contest is now closed. Winners are announced here! It’s time for another EQ Design Challenge! May’s Fabric of the Month is Live Boldly by Charisma Horton for Timeless Treasures. Live Boldly is Charisma’s vibrant and versatile debut collection! With 30 beautiful colors to choose from, these fabrics are sure to make your next sewing project shine! A bundle of these fabrics will be given away to two lucky winners! Submit your EQ design featuring Live Boldly 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 comment on someone else’s quilt before the contest ends. Instructions for how to submit an image