Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

As most of you know we’ve been working ’round the clock on Quilting Designs Volume 6 and Amy Butler Softwares - our two new CDs that are coming to Quilt Market May 15 (available for pre order now!).  But what you haven’t heard about is STASH Spring 2009 – OUR TWENTIETH EDITION! Yup, number twenty. That’s over 102,550 fabrics that we’ve scanned since we started this product in the fall of 1999. We are scanning all day long, creating libraries, sorting through boxes upon boxes of the newest fabric lines, designing packages, and throwing fabric at each other! Ok, maybe not that last part but we sure are surrounded by fabric everywhere you look. We know you’re all jealous Want to know more about our TWENTIETH EDITION of STASH? Read more here.

We recently blogged about Karen Witt, pattern designer and owner of Reproduction Quilts. We told you about her trip to France to teach a reproduction quilt class. Karen just sent me the design she created in EQ6 and a photo of the finished quilt top. Karen designed this quilt in EQ6. The black fabric is100% silk homespun and the other fabrics are from the line Colonial Williamsburg Providence by Windham. Karen and her daughter are selling the kit and pattern to make this quilt on their website. They also have a quilt made with this collection in Fons & Porters Easy Quilts Summer 2009 magazine that just came out! Congrats ladies! Karen’s daughter, Erin Witt, is also an avid EQ6 quilt designer and published quilter!Visit erinwittdesigns.com to see more of Erin’s Quilts.

We can always depend on the creative Jean Boyd to supply us with endless photo quilt projects! Here’s another project she’s sharing that includes an EQ Printables photo at the center surrounded by the sparkle of some beading. Check out Jean’s blog to read more on the project. Thanks for sharing, Jean!

Karen Witt is a pattern designer and owner of Reproduction Quilts who will soon be traveling to France to teach a class. How awful, right? This trip will be so neat for her students because Karen doesn’t just give you a quilt pattern to work on but fully immersed you in time period of the reproduction quilt that she makes. “In each class, we will listen to music from the era and discuss the lifestyles of women during the period – their clothing, culture, housing and, of course, quilts! My goal is for you to be immersed in the time period and enjoy the experience of making a reproduction quilt.” ~Karen The patterns she designed for her class in France are called Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington silhouettes and hopefully we’ll get to see the final product! Merci beaucoup et Bon voyage, Karen!

Way back in September, Jill Pesti was chosen as the winner of the Plan B contest held by Blue Meadows Designs. Plan B is one of the neatest contests we’ve seen in quilting. Quilters entered their half made quilts or quilts gone wrong to Cori Derksen and Myra Harder, quilt designers and owners of Blue Meadow Designs. The two women chose the quilt they felt not only could use the most help but also had the most potential to transform into something better! Cori and Myra then spent the next several months re working the quilt but keeping the original idea and feel of Jill’s artwork. The transformation was not only miraculous but really fun! Take a look at the before and after of Jill’s quilt. See more of the transformation of the Plan B quilt on Cori and Myra’s blog. And if you love their designs, check out Town and Country Patchwork by

Jane Hall was kind enough to send us a copy of her newest book (written with Dixie Haywood), Every Quilter’s Foundation Piecing Reference Tool, just out from C & T. Jane and Dixie, both EQ users, are THE authorities about foundation piecing. Between them they have about 80 years experience quilting, teaching and writing about a gazillion how-to and design quilting books. Like all good teachers, they set out to teach you more than just how to sew the blocks in their book. Their aim is to show you how to look at any block, so you begin to see for yourself how to divide the block into sections, or perhaps modify it, for quick foundation piecing. They used blocks from BlockBase and EQ6. This would be a great book for EQers who wanted to learn more about foundation piecing by studying block structure, making it easier to draw original foundation blocks in EQ6, or just

We just HAD to share this adorable quilt made with EQ printable fabrics and the very nice comments that came with it. Beautiful job, Jennifer. This quilt is such a treasure. “Hi, I used your premium cotton lawn fabric in a memory quilt that I made as a gift for my sister’s baby shower.  I put pictures of her, her husband, and their two daughters in it, along with blocks of bright but girly (all three children are girls) fabrics.  I’d never sewn anything before, and had just recently learned how to use my new sewing machine.  I was able to print all of the pictures I wanted without a single hitch!  It didn’t jam in my printer even once.  The pictures came out looking as sharp as they do when I print them on paper.  I printed them all in black and white, which made them stand out nicely