Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Jill Reid is a long time EQer that I have gotten the chance to chat with over the past few weeks. I first noticed her work in Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine when I was stopped by her quilt, Remembering Rebecca. I contacted her to find out more about how she designed it in EQ – in this case, she had designed it in EQ5 some time ago. It is a reproduction of an antique quilt belonging to her friend. But then Jill told me more about her EQ work. She uses EQ6 to design all her projects and many of those quilts have been published or will soon be! I loved reading how she relies on EQ during her design process and how it’s such a great tool for her. Here’s what she told me: “Oh gosh, Sarah, I use EQ as a tool for design all the time, it is

Tile Squares does the math for you. Whenever the center doesn’t work out for even numbers it adds a spacer. Try to get rid of the spacer by either making the center larger (Layout tab) or previous borders larger (Borders tab). Once Tile Squares works out evenly, switch to a different border style and everything will be square. Example: If you want to put diamonds in border 4 (shaded red), click on border 3 first. Make sure the “size of quilt including this border” is something easily divisible by something else. When I click on border 3 here, it’s 22.00. That’s divisible by 11 and 2. So when I click on border 4 and set it to Tile Squares with 11 blocks, it automatically sizes the border to 2 inches wide. Then switch it to Diamonds and the diamonds are perfectly square.

This was quite the contest! We received over 318 emails and almost 2,000 block names. Thanks to everyone who entered our Name that Block Contest. Here’s the unnamed block Andrea drew: We had Andrea go through all your emails and pick her favorite five names: 1) Basket Weaving – Sylvia Youngblut 2) Stars over Interlaken – Jackie Piazza 3) Star Catcher – Nancy Price & Elizabeth Campbell 4) Four Baskets Full – Sew Great Winterhoff 5) Gifts of Sun – Misty Schmidt Congratulations to our winners! Each of you win a copy of our new Quilting Designs: The Quiltmaker Collection Vol. 6 CD (or your choice of the other Quilting Designs in the series). We’ll send you an email to get your addresses and send the prizes this week!

This past weekend EQ twins Ben and Aly, born to EQ graphic designer Sara Seuberling and her husband Nick, showed support for their daddy as he ran a 5K through Bowling Green, Ohio. Using EQ’s Peel n’ Stick printable fabric, Sara made the kids giant stickers for their t-shirts that read, “Our daddy runs faster than your daddy!”. They surprised “Daddy” as he ran by and saw the kids smiling and sporting their signs. It gave him a little burst of energy and he even came in 4th place! Way to go Nick! What a fun and easy craft for Peel n’ Stick! What are you doing with your Peel n’ Stick projects?

We’re starting an Electric Quilt Channel on YouTube! Andrea Bishop has been taping episodes of Quilting Arts for 4 seasons now. We hope to get all of her segments up and maybe more from Penny’s illustrious TV career. So far we only have one episode up, but look for more in the coming weeks! Thanks to quiltingartstv.com for making this possible. Visit the Electric Quilt channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ElectricQuilt/

Last month we revealed the Kaleidoscope Mystery Quilt. This month we’re planning layouts and borders. Joan Lucchese has been diligently sewing along with the Mystery Quilt. She sent in a picture of her work in progress. Joan’s center Here’s what Joan says: “The learning curve for this project was steep for me. I have not made many quilts, I am brand new to EQ, and I have never paper-pieced, so my seam ripper became my best friend. I learned so much doing this project. Not only about how to use EQ to design and modify patterns, but about using color and combining shapes. I plan to do another of these quilts when I am finished with this one, knowing that the wedges are being used in combination with each other, which will change my block and color choices. I used a dark chocolate brown for my background and a couple

ClubEQ is a free club any EQ5 or EQ6 user can join, simply by using EQ to design a quilt. To join, just submit your project and we’ll display it in the Albums section of our website. At the end of the month, all participants receive all the other challenge projects that month. So send in one project file, and receive many more in return! No sewing necessary! The current challenge “Diamonds are Forever” is super versatile and easy. Challenge leader, Barb Vlack, says to “design a quilt with diamonds – diamond patches, diamond blocks, diamond appliqués, or whatever else sparkles in your creative mind.” Check out the ClubEQ page for Barb’s example quilts. Here’s a quick one I designed in about 5 minutes: Design at most 2 quilts and submit the project to penny@electricquilt.com by July 31st.