Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Machine embroidery is used in home decor, quilts, clothing, wearable accessories and much more.  Whatever you can think of, you can probably add some machine embroidery to it.  Recently, I have fallen in love with the artistic expressions created with cloth as the medium.  I can easily spot a design that is created by someone with artistic abilities.  I can sew, but I am not necessarily artistic by nature.  I have been experimenting with painting on cloth, but I still need to start with a design that I can follow.  (Color within the lines!) Launch your EQStitch program from the desktop. Click on the work on stitching icon at the top of the screen. Click on LIBRARY>Stitching Library Click on the EQStitch library and locate the zany zoo folder.  Click on the caterpillar to select it and then click on add to sketchbook and close at the bottom of the

This contest is closed. Congratulations to our winner: Barbara Bieraugel! Stay tuned for next month’s contest sponsored by Island Batik fabrics! View full contest schedule here. Welcome to the sixth of ELEVEN giveaways we’re hosting on our blog this year. Each contest will open on the 10th of every month and feature one of our 25th Anniversary sponsors. Note: This month’s contest winner will be announced Monday, June 27th. June Featured Sponsor: Aurifil Italian Threads!  They’ve provided the brand new Heritage Collection by Jenny Doan as the giveaway! To enter, answer this question by commenting below: Visit the EQ Quilt Gallery to see what people have made with EQ7. Which quilt is your favorite? NOTE: Contest closes Saturday, June 25th at 9am Eastern time. Winner will be announced Monday, June 27th. Wait, there’s more -  Win an EQ7 on Aurifil’s blog! EQ 25th Anniversary blog contests close at 9am ET

There is more than one way to create an artwork object to have stitches applied to it.  There is not necessarily one correct way only, but one way may indeed give you better results when you apply stitches to your object. Consider the simple square box.  You could draw it with four separate line segments or you could use the polygon shape tool and select the square box shape as an already closed object.  Both ways of drawing are considered a square. When you click on the stitch tab and apply the edge stitches to the design you will see which box shape looks better. Line segments have a start/stop point on each line.  A closed shape is a continuous stitch all around the outer edge.  If you are very careful with your drawing using a line drawing tool you may be able to get the edit points of each

Spotted in the May/June issue of Love of Quilting magazine: Another beautiful quilt designed in EQ7! Read about Deborah Kalenty and her Patriotic Cosmic Stars quilt: EQ: Congrats on being in the newest issue of Love of Quilting Magazine! Your Patriotic Cosmic Stars quilt is beautiful! How does it feel to see YOUR design in a magazine? Deborah: It always feels very nice—exciting! I’ve had a few projects published over the years and it always feels gratifying. EQ: Tell us a bit about yourself, Deborah. Deborah: I’ve been quilting for 27 years; I started my business: Quilter’s Obsession in 2005—initially as an online web store. Then I began vending at quilt shows about a year later. I earned an Instructors Certification from Studio 180 Designs two years ago and have been teaching and lecturing since then. About me personally, I’m happily married for over 20 years, with two children; we

Winner: Kim Wheeler! This contest is now closed. Thanks for participating! Did you see this book in the newest issue of Love of Quilting magazine? It definitely caught my eye! Scrap Quilt Secrets by Diane Knott is a must have. Read about Diane’s expertise with color and scraps and how she uses EQ. EQ: Hi Diane! I noticed your book, Scrap Quilt Secrets, in the newest issue of Love of Quilting. Tell us a bit about it! Diane: Thanks Christine, I’ve been giving quilt presentations and teaching workshops for a few years and I noticed that I kept getting the same questions over and over again. Basically, it seemed like most people wanted to know more about the process or steps I take to create my own bright scrappy quilts designs with hundreds of fabrics in them, from traditional two or three color vintage quilt designs. So I came up

The EQ7 Layout Library contains 541 pre-designed layouts ready to be made into quilts on the Quilt Worktable. Use these layouts as a jumping off point for your quilt designs. For example, if you’d like to make a quilt that’s sized appropriately for a queen-sized bed (but don’t want to think about the math of it), the Layout Library > Basics by Size is a great place to start. The Basics by Style category offers a wide variety of custom set layouts that range from simple medallion quilts to special effect quilts. Click LIBRARIES > Layout Library. The Layout Library is organized into two categories: Basics by Size: This category has quilts ranging in size from California King down to placemats. Each size category contains several layouts — horizontal, on-point, with or without sashing, and so on. When you add and edit one of these layouts to the worktable, you

I can’t freehand draw,  but I can trace.  I need a drawing image to start with before I begin to digitize.  While watching my grandson create a picture in a dot-to-dot drawing book, it came to me that this is a good way to demonstrate the digitizing principle of ‘pathing’.  Pathing is finding your way around a design in one continuous line so you end up not having any jump stitches in your embroidery.  You can usually do this for the majority of your design.  Any elements not attached to the line will have a jump stitch to those free standing elements. Start by opening your program and being on the stitch worktable. There are many websites on the internet where you can download free dot to dot drawing pages.  Save one to your computer so you can bring it into the EQStitch program as a tracing image.  I found