Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

So I was recently asked to teach a series of classes for the Nebraska State Quilt Guild (NSQG). It was in Lincoln (I’d never been there before, let alone Nebraska). Penny had been there before. She told me to go to the museum if I had time. I was still slightly frazzled from checking my flight online to make sure everything was in order, and it asked me “are you ready for your trip to Chicago?” “Uh… no… I’m going to Lincoln, through Chicago…. where is the other half of my trip?” Luckily the flight had been rescheduled and not cancelled, so I fixed everything with a few days to spare. I focused on getting my classes ready and remembering that if I forgot to pack my laptop & handouts it wouldn’t be a very fun class for my students. I figured if I had time to do stuff on

We’ve got another video up on our new Electric Quilt You Tube Channel! Andrea Bishop talks with Quilting Arts host, Pokey Bolton, about “Flower Power” and designing your own wreathed flowers to use as applique or quilting stencils in Electric Quilt software. Visit the Electric Quilt channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ElectricQuilt/ Thanks to quiltingartstv.com for making this possible.

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/