Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

This challenge is closed. Winners announced here. We’re back with another EQ Design Challenge & Giveaway with a new collection from Island Batik! This Signature Collection is called Icicle by Kathy Engle for Tammy Silvers of Tamarinis. Here are the fabrics: EQ Design Challenge & Giveaway Design a quilt in EQ using fabrics from Icicle, a Signature Collection designed by Kathy Engle from Island Batik for Tammy Silvers of Tamarinis. You could win some fabulous Island Batik precuts! To Enter Design a quilt in EQ using the Island Batik Icicle fabrics and submit an image of it by July 31, 2019. (Instructions for how to submit an image are at the bottom of this post.) Download the free Icicle fabrics for EQ here Rules Your EQ quilt must use fabrics from the Icicle collection. If desired, you may use up to 3 other fabrics from the Island Batik collections in the Manufacturer

The Row by Row Experience® began in 2011 with 20 quilt shops across New York State. Since then thousands more stores in the US, Canada and Europe have joined the fun. Travelers collect row patterns, then create stunning quilts with those rows … and no two are alike! The idea is to travel, shop and collect patterns.  Then combine your rows to form your quilt! Row by Row Taste the Experience started June 21, 2019 and the collecting ends September 3, 2019. Here is more information. There are four different sizes you may receive from quilt stores. You will likely get a variation of all these sizes. How do you make them all fit together? With EQ8, of course! Follow along with the lesson and create a quilt to submit right on our blog. If you have a blog, make sure to add your site too. Let’s visit each others’

BlockBase is the CD-ROM version of Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns and it’s jam packed with over 4300 block patterns. And the best part is you can print the patterns for these blocks at any size you want! BlockBase also includes a wealth of historical information for each block. You may find that the beautiful modern block you saw on a blog recently was actually first published in the 1930’s! As the saying goes, “Everything old is new again,” and quilting is no exception! You can use BlockBase on its own….   Or, link it right to your EQ and use the BlockBase blocks just like you would other EQ blocks!   You can watch a video to find out more about BlockBase! BlockBase is also on sale! Today (6/28/19)  only! Use code BLOCKBASE30 to save!

I have had a lot of questions about creating personal libraries in EQ8.  Many of you want to create your own libraries containing your favorite fabrics from your Stash or from a particular manufacturer.   If you have taken pictures of your stash and imported them into EQ8 or have imported other fabrics into EQ8, you can create and store them in their own library. Electric Quilt allows you to set up your own fabric libraries under My Favorite Fabrics.  When you create your own library, the fabrics that you put into it will be available to use in any project you want to design. Here is how to create that space. Open EQ8. Go to the top Main Menu and click LIBRARIES, choose Fabric Library.  The dialogue box will open. Select the My Favorite Fabrics section. Click the Create Library button and the Add new Library dialogue will open. Enter

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. Let’s get creative! This month’s block: Peacock Feathers Where to find it: 05 Contemporary Applique > Tile and Celtic Designs A few design ideas to get you started My first quilt is a simple 6 x 8 horizontal layout with a 1″ sashing. Using the Symmetry tool on this asymmetric block creates some fun designs! My second quilt uses a layout from the library (On-Point Medallions – 3). I set the Peacock Feathers block in the four center spaces. Then I used the Hour Glass block (01 Classic Pieced > Chains) in the surrounding block spaces. What would you design with the Peacock Feathers block? Post a quilt or two in the comments

Have you seen the gorgeous entries submitted to the Aura challenge?! (See them in the original post here.) Thanks to everyone for participating! Winner Aura designer, Mathew Boudreaux, chose his favorite entry and it is………… Jenn B! UPDATE: Jenn was kind enough to share her EQ8 project file! You can download it for EQ8 here. Jenn will receive fat quarters of the Aura collection from Art Gallery Fabrics! Again, you can see all the fabulous entries in the original blog post. Thanks again to all participants and congrats to Jenn B!!

This month we are exploring the possibilities with the borders in EQ8! Follow along with the lesson and create a quilt to submit right on our blog. If you have a blog, make sure to add your site too. Let’s visit each others’ blogs and all get to know each other! Let’s get started! There are a few different ways to work with borders in EQ8. First let’s work with what is encompassed under the Border’s tab. Let’s set up our layout. Click the NEW QUILT tab Click Horizontal In the LAYOUT tab for Number of Blocks make it 1 x 1 Set your Width and Height to 20 x 20 Click the DESIGN tab > Block Tools > Open Library Find an interesting block for your center and click Add to Sketchbook Click Close Click Set Block Click on your newly added block Click to place the block Click