Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Have you heard the news?! Two all-time favorite quilting products are being re-released!! We have teamed up with esteemed quilt historian, Barbara Brackman, to bring back her sought-after Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns book and the complementary fan-favorite BlockBase software (for Windows and Mac)! Yes, you read that correctly. We plan to take pre-orders for the book starting October 1 and release BlockBase in early 2021. Here’s a sneak peek of the book! More details about the book > More details about pre-orders > More details about BlockBase >  We know you have questions! We have put together a Frequently Asked Questions list with answers to all your questions! View the full FAQ list now. If you have additional questions that you don’t see there, please comment below, or contact our office via email or live chat.

We are very excited to tell you about a brand-new product! We’ve partnered with EQ Artist, Linda J. Hahn, and her quilting-partner-in-crime, Deborah G. Stanley, to bring you EQ8 projects from their recent book release, Rock That Quilt Block! Both ladies have had many of their quilts published in national quilting magazines, and each designs for major fabric companies. We’re thrilled to be bringing their designs to EQ users in this new add-on for EQ8! Rock That Quilt Block is based on the Country Crown block and seeing what fun and different designs you can create using that block. The women do a combination of using the original block, breaking it up into smaller sections, rotating, changing colors, and sometimes adding sashing or other simple shapes, all in order to dazzle the eye with drastically varied quilts. Who knew so many awesome quilts could stem from one block? Linda and

Have you seen the awesome entries submitted to the Pin Drop challenge?! (See them in the original post here.) Thanks to everyone for participating! Winners Riley Blake Designs couldn’t narrow it to just one, so they chose THREE winners! That means three lucky designers will receive a bundle of the Pin Drop fabrics – YAY!! Congratulations to the following people… Kim W: “My entry is called “Prismatic Pin Drop.” I was struck by how the prints in this collection, especially on the darker colors, look a bit like stars in the night sky, so I was inspired to do a star theme. Also, the thin points of these stars are a little like pins! There is no curved piecing in this pattern; the illusion of curves comes from the half square triangles meeting the triangle in a square blocks. The use of a pieced border allows the design to continue out

This challenge has closed. View the winners here. We’re back, with another chance to win some beautiful fabrics!! August’s Fabric of the Month is Sommersville from Maywood Studio. By now, you know the drill – download the fabrics, design a quilt with them in EQ, then post your design! (All contest details are below.) But, get extra excited because Maywood will ship a bundle of the fabrics to TWO WINNERS and they will ship worldwide! Don’t miss this one, start designing today! Good luck! To enter Design your own, original quilt in EQ using the Sommersville fabrics then submit an image of it by 11:59pm ET on August 31, 2020. (Instructions for how to submit an image are at the bottom of this post.) Download the free Sommersville fabrics for EQ here Rules Your EQ Quilt must only use fabrics from the Sommersville collection. One entry per person. (If a second entry is submitted within 24 hours

This month will be an overview of the Image Worktable and we’ll be making quilts with some images we create. Let’s get started! Open EQ8. Click Image Worktable. Click Import Image and navigate to wherever your image is saved on your computer. Click Open. Crop the image if needed. Click Add to Project Sketchbook  . If you haven’t named your project yet, EQ8 will prompt you to do so. (To be saved, your item needs to be in the Sketchbook AND your project needs to be named. Here is more information.) Click Color on the green ribbon. Read about all the Color Tools and have fun experimenting. Create Colorway was used to create the different colored dog. Click Add to Project Sketchbook   to save any variations. Click Histogram on the green ribbon. Read about all the Histogram options. You can start with your original image or one of the variations. These tools are more

EQ is a quilt design software but we can use it for more than quilt designs.  Have you ever considered making a cloth book for children celebrating different types of playtime?  You can easily accomplish this without sewing a single seam. Open your EQ8 and create a project name ‘Childs Eyeview of Lazy Days of Summer’.  Lazy days would include quiet play, reading, learning while playing, or making up songs and stories around simple images.  For very young children, all life is play! Confirm the name of the project is showing at the top of your screen. Click on the block worktable icon on the upper right corner of the screen. Click on BLOCK>New Block> Easy Draw at the upper left area above the worktable. At the top of the worktable enter a block size of 8 inches with snaps vertical and horizontal set at 32. Click on the line

Welcome to the EQ8 Block Spotlight series! Each month we highlight a block from the EQ8 Block Library with a few design ideas. Then we want YOU to show us what you can do with the block. Whether you’re a brand new EQ8 user or a seasoned pro, come join in the fun! This month’s block: Geometric Star 2 Stripe Where to find it: 01 Classic Pieced > Priscilla A couple design ideas to get you started I love this block! It’s difficult to only share two quilts in the post when you end up with a Sketchbook full of designs that you love. The first quilt I’m sharing is a 3 x 3 on-point layout with two Corner Blocks borders. I used the Cider collection from BasicGrey to color the quilt. It may be 100 degrees today, but I’m already thinking fall! It’s always fun to see what a block