Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Coloring and sketching/doodling is now seen as being a relaxing meditative hobby that aids in overall health.  Who knew??  I wanted to see if I could actually ‘sketch’ an embroidered design.  This can be a little tricky as stitches are precise with a defined type, width, length and texture.  I was able to draw something that I felt was similar to a ‘sketch’ with stitches using my EQStitch. Open the EQStitch program. Click on the stitch worktable icon to open the stitch features. Click on the tracing image tab at the bottom of the screen. Bring in an image onto the image tab and size it to the size of the hoop you will be using.   You could also use a motif image from the block library if you wanted to.  The image is up to you. Add the image to the sketchbook so it is available for tracing

This last week, Kid Giddy aka Kerry Goulder sent us a few quilts and tons of blocks to photograph. They were all designed in EQ7! Her blocks are all super intricate! Look for all of the fussy cutting she did in her blocks. She even painted the star in Santa’s eye. Hot Skates – Designed by Kerry Goulder Queen Bee – Designed by Kerry Goulder Land of Magic – Designed by Kerry Goulder Mug Club & Winking Santa Mug – Designed by Kerry Goulder Totem Bear & Totem Wolf – Designed by Kerry Goulder French Bulldog Block – Designed by Kerry Goulder Daddy’s Quilt Blocks – Designed by Kerry Goulder Which of these blocks or quilts are your favorite? Let us know! Watch for more of Kid Giddy’s work in future social media posts!

Christa Watson of ChristaQuilts.com is releasing a new book! Piece and Quilt with Precuts has some gorgeous quilts! Lots of fun and easy machine methods in quilts made with precuts.  It includes 11 pieced patterns and 18 machine quilting designs, all aimed towards helping you have start-to-finish success! Read more about her Piece and Quilt with Precuts on Christa’s blog! Christa also has a Blog Hop going on! She’s linking to other creative bloggers and their versions of her quilts. It’s so fun to see all the different possibilities! She is also giving away PRIZES! Be sure to check it out! (and keep reading for more info on our giveaway!) Christa has two other books: Machine Quilting with Style and The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting which she co-wrote with Angela Walters. Christa used EQ7 to design the quilts in all of her books! Here are some examples from Piece

When joining two shapes in EQStitch you will always have a start and stop point (tie off) of each of the shapes. To make them join seamlessly you need to draw them in one motion so they connect without a tie off. Using any shape tool, create a closed shape on the drawing board area. Now use the line tool and create lines around the object that appear to be connected. Click on the stitch tab at the bottom of the screen and fill the center shape with the set fill stitches tool. Color each of the lines with the set thread tool. You will see that when you click on a line to apply the color it does not color all the lines at once. This is because the lines are not really connected to the object shape in the center. Each of the elements of the drawing will

Let’s have a party with this colorful Fiesta Quilt made with just one simple block from the block library of EQ Mini Software.  You can easily design a simple quilt with big impact using your new design skills.  This quilt is fat quarter friendly and I designed it with that in mind to use a fun stack of Joel Dewberry fat quarters that I had picked up at Quiltcon earlier this year.  I kept the blocks large to highlight the prints and was able to get two blocks from each fat quarter.  It uses a horizontal quilt layout, large scale blocks and fun colors in this delightful Fiesta quilt. Fiesta Quilt Skillset: Beginner Size: 48″ x 72″ Skill Builders: Working with horizontal  layout Working with Size and Scale On to the design! Open EQ Mini. If it asks you to take a quick tour, click Close. Read the tip of the

EQ welcomes its newest EQ Artist, Sarah Maxwell of Designs By Sarah J! Sarah has been using EQ to design many quilts that have been featured in several magazines as well as for Marcus Fabrics. She also has her own fabric designs! Below is a write up from Sarah about one of her favorite quilts designed in EQ featuring her fabric line, A Shout, a Whisper, a Text. “When I designed the Shout line, I knew I wanted to feature a pattern that merged a traditional block with a modern sense of design. I also wanted to use every fabric in my line in the quilt (of course!) Since I’ve always loved shoo fly, churn dash and monkey wrench variations, I downloaded those blocks from my EQ block library and started playing. With 18 fabrics in the line, the shoo fly block just didn’t have enough patches to handle all the colors and

HoopSisters‘ quilts are some of the most amazing quilts I have seen. Each square has such complexity and together they form a stunning quilt! Take a look at some of the close ups to see how intricate each square is! Summer Dreams by HoopSisters Feathered Star by HoopSisters Jacobean Journey by HoopSisters Do you like these quilts as much as we do? Let us know what you think!