Interview

INTERVIEW WITH GETA GRAMA
When we saw Geta's amazing Shadow Trapunto quilts, designed using EQ's WreathMaker tool, we had to know more about her, and the new book we've been hearing about. Here's the scoop!

Lessons & Classes

KALEIDOSCOPE COLLECTORS MONTH 11
In this "next-to-last" lesson, Month 11, Andrea teaches you how to draw a twist inside the kaleidoscope wedges for owners of her Kaleidoscope Collection CD.

If you're just starting, see Months 1 - 10.

If you're sewing Andrea's Kaleidoscope Mystery quilt or make a quilt using blocks from this software, send a picture to webmaster@electricquilt.com. We'd love to blog about it!

PREVIOUS MYSTERY QUILT STORIES AND LESSONS
Learn EQ5 or EQ6 by working through our two different Mystery Quilt series: If you are just joining us, start here with Skylights Episode 1 and Skylights Lesson 1.

Then work through the EQuinox mystery, starting with EQuinox Episode 1 and EQuinox Lesson 1.

Show us your quilts! Have you made one of our Mystery quilts? We want to see your quilt or top. Email us a photo and we'll post it in our mystery gallery: Skylight mystery quilts, EQuinox mystery quilts

STILL TIME TO SIGN UP FOR HOUSTON CLASSES
Classes are filling up fast. You can still sign up for the hands-on October 2009 EQ classes experts Barb Vlack & Mary Ellen Kranz will teach at Quilt Festival in Houston. See their class offerings. Check with www.quilts.com to enroll.

ARE YOU TEACHING EQ?
If you are teaching EQ classes, don't forget to let our webmaster know the date, time and location of your classes so we can list them on our website.

EQ CLASSES
Want a hands-on EQ class? See who's teaching, what's being taught, and where. Find classes from Staffordshire, UK to BC, Canada, as well as Florida and California.

RANAE MERRILL CLASSES
EQer RaNae Merrill, author of Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts announces new classes starting:

September 5, 2009 (4 weeks):
Spirals 201: Combining Spirals 1

October 3, 2009 (4 weeks):
Spirals 100: Spirals Crash Course
 
Note: These are not specific EQ classes, but EQ users do take them. Details for all these classes can be found on RaNae's website.

News

ELECTRIC QUILT IS ON FACEBOOK
Electric Quilt has its own Facebook page now, as does EQ the Mouse. Become a Fan, and you'll get regular updates when we post something on our blog, or add a new video, or have other news.

EQ the Mouse adores his fans. If you're not yet one, he would love you to "fan him."

To become a fan:
1. Log into your facebook profile
2. Click this link, EQ the Mouse, to become a fan of EQ the Mouse.
3. Click this link, Electric Quilt , to become a fan of Electric Quilt.

FAB FAN FREEBIES
EQ the Mouse announces "Fab Fan Freebies." He explains: He loves his fabulous fans, and will choose a fan every now and again on a Friday, on his Facebook page, to receive a random prize. To be eligible, become his Facebook fan.

MORE VIDEOS ON ELECTRIC QUILT'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Watch Andrea work her EQ Magic on YouTube. See a new short EQ segment from Pokey Bolton's Quilting Arts TV on YouTube.
www.youtube.com/ElectricQuilt

More to come, and Andrea's taping new segments this month with Pokey to be aired in the next Quilting Arts series.

Show us your work

EXHIBIT IN OUR NEW EQ QUILT GALLERY
The EQ Quilt Gallery is fantastic, thanks to you. Do you have a good photo of a real quilt you designed in EQ? Show us!  

Send us a photo of your quilt, along with your EQ project containing the EQ design for this same quilt. Tell us a bit about you, your quilt, your designing, whatever. List your website or blog if you have them. Help us show off your designing whether you're a quilting professional or this is your first quilt. Send them to penny@electricquilt.com. We love seeing what you're making and knowing more about you.  

STILL CALLING ALL EQ GUYS
We KNOW you're out there but we've still only only heard from a handful of you. We're still looking for more male quilters using EQ6 for a future newsletter interview/article. If you've not already emailed us, please do: 

Subject: EQ Guys
Send to: penny@electricquilt.com

Just let us know you're out there, and we'll send you some interview questions at a later time.

NEW ON OUR BLOG
Tutorials by Jan Urquhart Baillie:
http://www.doyoueq.com/blog/?p=847

An easy but stunning quilt by Linda Hahn and Mary May published in Quilt magazine:
http://www.doyoueq.com/blog/?p=842

Char O'Leary's quilt featured in Quick Quilts magazine:
http://www.doyoueq.com/blog/?p=837

Let us know if you post EQ stuff on *your* blog so we can link. Also, send us info about what EQ stuff you're up to. We love to brag about you! Send an email to penny@electricquilt.com and tell us your EQ news.

Inspiration

DAILY EQ-DESIGNS BY JUDY BUTCHER
We like visiting Judy Butcher's blog often just to see what new EQ quilt she's designed for the day.

DAILY EQ-DESIGNS BY GLYNIS THOMPSON
Want more inspiration? Glynis has a blog too where she posts daily EQ designs. Check out some of Glynis's latest work.

VIRTUAL ROUND ROBIN
Enjoy the Round Robin "movie" the German-speaking Yahoo group "EQ Hilfe" made. Cheryl Petreman just sent us the impressive results.

ANNE MAUNDRELL'S CREATIVE PHOTO-INSPIRED QUILTS
See how Anne used EQ6 to trace an exotic bird for her latest quilt.

Clubs

WANT TO START YOUR OWN EQ CLUB?
Download our "Planning an EQ Club" PDF file. See what you need to get started, how to organize and get topic ideas. The Mystery Quilt would make a great club project.

ClubEQ REMINDER
ClubEQ is a free monthly challenge organized by EQ-author, Barb Vlack. To participate, send in a project with 1-2 quilts to penny@electricquilt.com that follow the challenge theme and ClubEQ rules. Imagine getting 50 to 100 quilts for just submitting one.

August's challenge is almost over - submit your "Rotate and Fussy Cut!" challenge entry.

Look for an EQ-the-Mouse-inspired challenge next month.

Support

ASK EQ THE MOUSE!
Long-time mascot, EQ the Mouse, invites you to submit EQ questions for his column "Ask EQ." Email questions to Tech Support. Put "Ask EQ" in the subject line. He'll answer your question, and perhaps you'll make his monthly Q & A column. Read it here.

Read this month's Ask EQ questions & answers.

EQ the Mouse also invites you to Fan him on Facebook.

MAIL-LIST FOR MAC EQ-ERS
Are you running your EQ on a Mac? Then you may want to subscribe to the free EQonMacs Yahoo group, run by Sheila Williams. For more information, contact Sheila at Sheila@SheilaWilliams.com.

EQ FORUMS
The new EQ Forums are up! Visit the EQ Forums and register, then you can ask questions and get answers from EQ staff, authors and other EQ users right on the EQ website.

TECH SUPPORT
A reminder that you can see answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions right on the EQ website. See EQ6 questions here. See EQ5 questions here.

EQ6 UPDATE
If you own EQ6, download and install the free EQ6 Update which makes EQ6 run faster and smarter. You'll know you're updated if in EQ6 you click
HELP > About EQ6 and see "Build 2."

Contests

NEW CONTEST – OH BABY!
Guess the weight and height of our newest EQ baby, Ashtyn Elizabeth, born to Sarah Shriver, of Marketing & Promotions, and her husband Jason on August 14th.

Send an email
To: penny@electricquilt.com
Subject: Oh Baby! Contest
Body: your name and your guess for Ashtyn's Ashtyn's height (inches) & weight (pounds and ounces)

Enter once, with one email please
Deadline: September 20, 2009

The five who guess closest will win a free Quilting Designs CD of their choice.

ANNOUNCING THE "GUESS DEAN'S BIRTHDAY" CONTEST WINNERS
Our company President Dean Neumann's birthday is: October 23

We had 125 guesses. The most-often guessed month was August. Some guessed your own birthdays - why not?

Our five contest winners guessing closest to Dean's birthday were:
Janet Smith
Sandra Moline
Linda Lallathin
Barb Bolton
Kathy Klug

Congratulations to our five winners who will each receive a free Quilting Designs CD of their choice.

P.S. This will be the FIRST birthday in many years that Dean will be home. Usually his birthday falls during the time we're at Quilt Festival in Houston. EQ the Mouse is planning something...

WIN A CHANCE TO APPEAR IN QUILTMAKER MAGAZINE
Next month we will be announcing a virtual quilt design contest sponsored by Quiltmaker magazine and The Electric Quilt Company, involving designs from our Quilting Designs: The Quiltmaker Collection CDs. Wait 'til you hear the prizes!

NEW AMY BUTLER CONTEST
Amy Butler's Mid Mod Contest to celebrate the launch of her Amy Butler's Softwares CD ends September 15. There's still time to enter!

Fabric

DOWNLOAD MORE FREE FABRIC
This month's download is "Batiks." Choose either to download a Library file or a Project file. Be sure to follow the easy steps provided. Then vote for next month's fabric.

NEW CONNECTING THREADS FABS AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD
Connecting Threads has made some of their own fabric collections available especially for EQ6 users as Library files. Find the collections here.

1) Download the file to your Desktop. Extract the zipped file (right-click, then click "Extract All").
2) Place the .FAB file in your My Documents\My EQ6\USER\ folder on your hard drive.
3) Open EQ6 and your fabric library. The collection will appear in your "MY LIBRARY" folder.

NEW MODA FABS AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD
Moda has new fabrics available to download as jpeg files, ready to be opened in EQ6.

1) Visit Moda's site, click any brown dot in front of a fabric name, download to your computer (remember where it goes).
2) Go to LIBRARIES > Fabric Library > Import > From Image Files and import the fabric.
3) Add the fabric to your Sketchbook and use it, or save the fabric in My Library (see pages 143 and 144 in the EQ6 User Manual) to use in future projects.

If you need complete steps, EQ the Mouse addresses them in one of his Ask EQ columns.

Freebies

FREE PROJECT FROM ANGIE PADILLA
Here's a great quilt for beginners from Angie Padilla. Angie's quilt is an easy-to-sew, easy-to-mock-up-in-EQ project perfect for beginners.

Check out the steps for creating it in EQ on our blog.

FREE PROJECTS FROM DENISE RUSSART
Denise Russart has added a Sunflower Garden Tablerunner to the new free EQ6 projects you can download. Visit her blog and leave her a comment if you like her projects.

FREE PROJECTS FROM REGINA GREWE
Regina, a German EQ designer, offers wonderful patterns to download as EQ6 projects.

Bookmark her site and check back monthly to get new patterns (foundation and appliqué patterns) for her on-going series on Birds.

FREE MYSTERY BOM FROM GUDRUN
Gudrun, from Belgium, has started a Mystery Block of the Month for 2009 that she would like to share.
Block #1   Block #5
Block #2   Block #6
Block #3   Block #7
Block #4   Block #8

FLOWERS & BOMs FROM SINDY RODENMAYER
Looking for flower & bee blocks? See what Sindy's designed for you.

Also see Sindy's new pieced Chocolate Stars BOM which just started in August.

Find the new blocks for her appliqué Baltimore Bliss BOM here.

FREE QUILTED DESKTOPS & CALENDARS
Carolyn Laukkonen offers you a series of quilted desktops to choose from. Choose a favorite, or switch them monthly. Download onto your computer desktop. Find complete instructions on her site.

Or check out the beautiful calendars Diane Anderson designs just for you.

FREE VIEWERS
Want to see a self-running show of your own EQ projects? Download a free project viewer:

Download "EQ6 Show" if you have EQ6. It will show any EQ3, EQ4, EQ5 and EQ6 projects you've made.
Download "EQ5 Show" if you only have EQ5. It will show any EQ3, EQ4 & EQ5 projects you have made.

FREE EQ6 WEB BUTTONS
Show your EQ spirit by adding an EQ6 button to your website!

DO YOU HAVE FREE EQ PROJECTS OR PATTERNS TO SHARE ON YOUR WEBSITE?
Let us know and we'll list you on the Project Sharing page. Just email our webmaster with the necessary links and information and ask for your site to be considered for inclusion on that page.

Next Month...

COMING NEXT MONTH
* An interview with Karen Witt of Reproduction Quilts

* The results of our "Oh Baby! Contest" plus a new contest

* News of our new contest with Quiltmaker magazine

* Finale of the Kaleidoscope Collectors Club

* EQ the Mouse's Personal Pumpkin Bread recipe to celebrate October.

* Free Quilting Designs from our new Vol. 7 CD