Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Loved seeing the colorful entries come in for the Rose Whispers challenge! Check out the beautiful entries we received here! Thanks to all who participated! Winners Two winners were selected… one by Benartex and the other by Eleanor Burns herself! A big congrats to…. Benartex’s choice: Amanda Riddle “My goal was to showcase the beautiful, large floral prints in Rose Whispers while using the rich, dark colors to frame out those patterns. I started with the simple idea of using a double sawtooth star block and made everything else up as I went. I really enjoyed joining this competition for the first time using the EQ8 software for the first time!” – Amanda And… Eleanor Burns’ choice: Pat Rother “This is such a lovely collection I chose a scrappy palette and a simple, traditional block to showcase many of the fabrics. I love stripes in sashing and binding and Eleanor’s were

BlockBase+ is now available! You can order BB+ here. To celebrate, we’re hosting a new BlockBase+ Sew Along here on the blog and we hope you can join us. Following along with this series will be a great way to get comfortable with your new software and make some fun blocks too! The sew along starts Monday, March 29th! About BlockBase+ BlockBase+ (BB+ for short) is the software version of Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns book. Electric Quilt published the new, full-color third edition of this beloved book in the fall of 2020. We decided the software needed an update too, along with lots of new features! You can read about the new features in the BlockBase+ Top Ten series here on the blog! (Own a previous version of the BlockBase software? The original BlockBase software was released in 1996. Check out this comparison chart to see if

What if you have an image of a quilt you’d like to design in EQ8? Here are some tips for recreating quilts in EQ8. There are two main parts….figuring out the blocks and figuring out the layout. First, look at the quilt and see if you notice any blocks that you know by name. If so, find them in the EQ8 Block Library by searching by notecard by name. You can also try searching By Category with information you know about the block…For example for this block you could choose Pieced and Other Stars. Another option is to browse likely Block Library categories to see if you can find the block you are looking for. Even if you find something similar, you can edit the block. If you can’t find the block you can draw it. In this example you could also just use half square triangles. Just rotate and recolor. Or, try to analyze the quilt and see if you can break

March’s Fabric of the Month is Chinoiserie Garden by Sandy Lynam Clough for P&B Textiles! This collection includes so many beautiful patterns that will add a touch of elegance to any quilt! Bundles of these new fabrics will be given away based on P&B Textiles’ top picks! Submit your EQ design featuring Chinoiserie Garden below… all instructions and contest details are in this post. Good luck! To enter Design your own, original quilt in EQ using the Chinoiserie Garden fabrics then submit an image of it by 11:59pm ET on March 31, 2021. (Instructions for how to submit an image are at the bottom of this post.) Download the free Chinoiserie Garden fabrics for EQ here Rules Your EQ Quilt must only use fabrics from the Chinoiserie Garden collection. In addition, one solid color may be used. One entry per person. (If a second entry is submitted within 24 hours of the original entry, we will accept the more recent entry. For example, if

Note: Did you hear about the latest EQ8 Update? Be sure to update your EQ8 if you plan to purchase BlockBase+ that way you can use the BlockBase+ blocks in EQ8! Read instructions carefully. (Mac users – this update also fixes macOS Big Sur issues!) Click here to see all the BB+ Top Ten posts. #7 – Favorite Blocks There’s a good chance you’re going to want to keep track of some of your favorite blocks in BlockBase+, or perhaps just save some for later. Rather than having to find those blocks again when you need them, you can, with one click, add them to your Favorites! Simply select a block and click the Add to Favorites button to “favorite” that block. Then view the Favorites panel to see them all!   You’ll know which blocks you’ve favorited when you’re browsing the library because they’ll have little hearts on them! How cool is that?!

Note: Did you hear about the latest EQ8 Update? Be sure to update your EQ8 if you plan to purchase BlockBase+ that way you can use the BlockBase+ blocks in EQ8! Read instructions carefully. (Mac users – this update also fixes macOS Big Sur issues!) Click here to see all the BB+ Top Ten posts. #8 - Search for Blocks Even though the 4,000+ blocks in BlockBase+ are sorted into lots of helpful categories and sub-categories, we thought you might want a few different ways to search for blocks… that way you can quickly find what you’re looking for! Below are the ways you can search in Blockbase+. Search by Brackman ID Every block in BlockBase+ has a Brackman ID number as its name. The Brackman ID comes from the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns book by Barbara Brackman. If you know the Brackman ID of the block you are looking for, enter the number

Although we’re fully into 2021, we’re touching base with the phenomenal Heather Valentine, from The Sewing Loft, who was our 2020 EQ Ambassador! Over the last 2 years, so even before she was our amazing Ambassador, Heather designed and published more than 75 picture-quilt blocks! Of course, all of them were designed in EQ8! Since these blocks have been so popular, she put together an All-Access Pass for the collection. Jumping ahead Since we can all agree that last year was not what anyone had planned, we’re going to look forward and find out what Heather has on the horizon for 2021! Heather’s goal for this year is to get friendly with Mr. Roy G. Biv! No, we don’t need to alert her husband about another guy in her life ( ), but rather, she is working her way through her stash in color order (of the rainbow) to create