Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Our very own Andrea Bishop was invited to write an article for the new online magazine Quiltposium. It’s a quarterly, online magazine that is free. Just sign up and create a password at www.quiltposium.com to view the online magazine and receive the link to the next issue in December. Quiltposium is the brainchild of Sew Many Places founder, Jim West. According to West, it’s “a combination travel brochure and Quilt Magazine all in one, where HGTV meets the Travel Channel.” The magazine features the writing talents of many quilting-celebrities, an unbelievable selection of vacation destinations to choose from, free patterns to download, contests and giveaways-including a $1000 cash giveaway photo contest, and accessibility to dozens of interesting articles designed with creative individuals in mind. Some of the contributing authors are Jinny Beyer, Kaye England, Ricky Tims, Alex Anderson, Eleanor Burns, Pat Sloan, Vicki Tracy, Alex Veronelli, Meg Cox, Pam Holland,

Ida Tyson Blankenship, is the chairperson of the upcoming San Antonio Guild Show. She wrote in to tell us of her Guild’s Raffle quilt. Ida says: “I keep up with you with the newsletter, though you don’t hear from me often. The photo below is of our guild raffle quilt, designed on EQ with the traditional kaleidoscope block. Our San Antonio guild show is “Kaleidoscope of Quilts” Sept. 18-20. I thought you’d enjoy seeing this special quilt. I also have made a miniature of this quilt, so I can have it “to keep.” (I made the mini with paper piecing printed from EQ.)” “Jeweled Fire and Ice” GSAQG Donation Quilt 2009 This brightly colored quilt is a group project by our guild. The design was planned by show chairman Ida Blankenship and is based on the traditional Kaleidoscope block, using the Electric Quilt computer software. The bright blending colors have

Popular fabric blog True Up recently posted a review of our Amy Butler Softwares CD. Kevin Kosbab was so thorough with his review he even made some of the projects from the CD! Kevin’s samples are simply stunning. Read a some of the review here and then check out the full review of Amy Butler Softwares by Kevin on True Up: “More than just a collection of patterns, Softwares is like a virtual pattern book. The CD includes all the lush lifestyle photography you’d expect from a high-end craft book, but having templates and instructions in digital form encourages you to play around with the patterns and print just what you want or need (I followed the sewing instructions onscreen, and printed materials lists to go shopping). Overall, the digital patterns allowed more flexibility than a printed pattern or book, they suited the way I work very well, and the

EQT leader, Katrina Hamer, is up to more fun stuff! She recently sent us a picture of a printable fabric photo pillow she made. Now she’s showing us her finished tablerunner “Aspen Branches” from the Amy Butler Softwares. Katrina teaches EQ6 and QDW at A Common Thread in Portland, Oregon. She is now also co-teaching a class using Amy Butler Softwares. She made a more traditional and very autumnal version of Aspen Branches. In the program the pattern is available as a tablerunner and a quilt. The tablerunner is easy enough to have one for every season! The original one from Amy Butler has a much more spring-like feel to it. And, just because Christmas will be here before you know it, here is any idea for a red and green themed version of Aspen Branches. Thanks for sharing Katrina!

Katrina Hamer is leader of the EQT’s in Oregon and teaches Electric Quilt 6 and Quilt Design Wizard. (Check our class listings to see if there is something offered close to you.) She has taught for us at Quilt Market in the past and we love working with her! She recently sent us a project she made for a friend of hers. Katrina says, “I designed this pillow as a birthday gift for my friend Gretchen, who is a sophomore at WSU. As you can see by the pictures, she is an Alpha Omicron Pi sister. I designed it in EQ6, importing the photos and playing with the borders until deciding that fairly simple was the way to finish it. I then “designed” a quilt with just the photos, no borders, and printed that “quilt” on EQ Printables Fabric sheets. I backed the photo quilt with batting and stitched around

Guess the weight and height of our newest EQ baby, Ashtyn Elizabeth, born to Sarah Shriver, of Marketing & Promotions, and her husband Jason on August 14th. Send an email To: penny@electricquilt.com Subject: Oh Baby! Contest Body: your name and your guess for Ashtyn’s height (inches) & weight (pounds and ounces) Enter once, with one email please Deadline: September 20, 2009 The five who guess closest will win a free Quilting Designs CD of their choice. PLEASE email your guess.

We’ve posted another one of Andrea’s segments on Quilting Arts. Here she’s using Angie Padilla’s My Dream House add-on to create pillows, quilts, and wallhangings with fun scenes and furniture on them. Visit our channel on YouTube and check out episode # 109: http://www.youtube.com/ElectricQuilt