CONTENTS: Announcements -  Ask EQ -  Free Stuff -  Works For Me -  Show & Tell -  Quilter Community -  Quilt University -  A Quilt for Sean -  Club EQ -  Make it Simpler Paper Piecing -  EQ Mac Users Group -  Let's Make Marshmallows -  EQ & HP Sponsor Computer Labs -  Coming Soon from EQ -  Our Booth in Houston

Show & Tell
News from our talented users
We love hearing what you've done with EQ. Please write to us! We may put you into the next Floppy Gazette.

Diane's stunning quilt as it appeared in American Quilter

Diane Doran had an article in the Spring 2004 issue of American Quilter magazine about designing her prize-winning Ursa Minor quilt. Diane writes, "I designed Ursa Minor in 1999, so I believe I used EQ4. I used a metafile from EQ4 to import the block to CorelDraw, distorted it there, then redrafted it in EQ and completed the design using EQ. EQ's color gradient feature was especially helpful—in fact essential. If memory serves, it was not as easy to distort a block with EQ4 as it is with EQ5, that's why I also used CorelDraw. In my original draft of the article I described using both programs, but it was edited out."

Diane's Ursa Minor has won several awards locally, and the Excellence in Machine Quilting at the Road to California show in 2002. Diane lives in Glenelg, Maryland.

Bonnie Browning, the Executive Show Director for American Quilter's Society (and an EQ user from the start), was a featured guest on the show, Quilts: Secrets Hidden in Fabric, a special HGTV, first shown on Saturday, July 26, 2003. The program featured a quilt made with WWII era quilt blocks. Bonnie researched the blocks' embroidered names on the Internet, to find the makers. Bonnie writes, "There are still many unanswered questions about these blocks. I was pleasantly surprised that they let me say [on air] that I used Electric Quilt to lay out the quilt. And then they showed me at the computer scanning the blocks and clicking to place the blocks into the quilt. You received a wonderful free plug for EQ!

Bonnie had EQ4 at the time, so she scanned in the original blocks, and had to do it the hard way by importing the blocks as fabric. As she describes her process, "I scanned the block and saved it at a reduced percentage. It was a bit of trial and error to get them to fit the block in my quilt layout. I followed the instructions in the manual for importing them as fabric. The manual said that you usually use 50%. That was way too big and you could only see a portion of my design. I just kept cutting it in half until the design showed up in the window. I believe I ended up saving this 8" block at 8% so it would fit. Once the blocks were in my Fabric Library file, I copied them into my active Fabric folder [in the Sketchbook] and just clicked to put them into the quilt."

Bonnie now has EQ5 and has an easier tip for users. "Now, I am going to tell you not to do it that way...use EQ5 and the Import Picture feature. [See page 162 in the EQ5 Design Cookbook for directions.] It's much easier. Just trim the block so you don't have much border on the edges of the block."

Bonnie has also used EQ5's Import Picture to import graphic art her husband put together for a military style quilt with a flag and an eagle superimposed on it. "He wants to make his own quilt to raffle at his Army reunion next year. It worked like a charm. What a great sales tool for EQ5. I wish I had known about the Import Picture feature when I was working on my Mother's 80th birthday quilt. It would have made the process of placing all of those blocks of different sizes into my quilt. Instead, for that, I ended up working with graph paper to calculate the spacer blocks. For next time, I know how valuable the Import Picture feature is. I don't have much time to explore all of the features of these software programs.Unfortunately, it usually is me learning as I try something new. I would suggest that all users import some graphics as bitmaps and play with the Import Picture feature. It's a gem!" Bonnie lives in Paducah, Kentucky—home of the American Quilter's Society.

Jan Urquhart, author of A Moment in Time

EQ user Jan T Urquhart, formerly owner/editor of Australia's first quilt magazine, Down Under Quilts, has written an inspiring quilt book, A Moment inTime: Turn your precious memories into quilts to treasure. Jan's idea-filled book is on using photos in your quilts to tell a story about a special moment in time—like scrapbooking in fabric. Short book sections deal with printing on fabric, framing your image, designing your quilt (she uses EQ5 for the layouts, and says it—thanks, Jan!), embellishment and more. Pride Publishing in Australia published Jan's book.

Barbara Campbell, is a former magazine editor who now heads her own pattern business, Love in Stitches in Pine Brook, New Jersey. "I learned much during my time as editor, and met many wonderful designers and artists who are now good friends, but missed the creative flow of making quilts myself," she says. Barbara has designed for such fabric companies as Avlyn, Erlanger, Michael Miller, RJR and Baum Textiles, as well as having patterns published in The Quilter Magazine, one in the upcoming issue of Fabric Trends and several being sold as kits in Better Homes & Gardens Catalog. "I absolutely love this industry and find that EQ helps me in all areas of designing and writing patterns. The more I learn about this program, the more I realize the power and versatility it contains. I recommend it to all my quilting friends and have found it so easy to use. It seems that whatever I imagine, I have been able to create with EQ."

Dana Brennan Hancock's quilt, In the Morning Light, was featured in the October 2003 issue of Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. In her article, Robin describes how she turned to EQ to design her quilt for a challenge on using 103 tone-on-tone fabrics. The article gives the four block patterns Dana used to make her beautiful quilt. Thanks so much for the mention in QNM, Dana!

Tutu Haynes-Smart, from Cape Town, South Africa, won a second place traditional aware in the World Quilt & Textile show last fall. Tutu's prizewinning quilt, Dear Jane: Better Finished than Perfect, is also known as the "Blue Dear Jane" since it is one of two DJ quilts she has completed. Both are displayed in the gallery of EQ Company's Dear Jane Software. Tutu wanted to see her quilt on display, but as she put it, "I just couldn't manage to work out how to fold myself flat enough to get into the parcel to go with it."

Ace McGunigle's A Flash of Green quilt

Alice (Ace) McGunigle's A Flash of Green quilt was featured in QuiltWorks Today magazine. Ace writes, "A couple of years ago a weaver visited our guild. She had a book of historical weaving patterns and asked if we could make quilts from the patterns. That was our challenge that year and this quilt was my entry in the challenge. The design looks pretty straight forward, but I had to fiddle with it quite a bit to get it to a design that I liked." Ace is from Shippenville, Pennsylvania.

Sherry's clubEQ project grew up to be her guild's opportunity quilt

When Sherry Coté, from Delhi, California, sent us photos of the 2004 opportunity quilt for her Turlock Quilt Guild in Turlock, CA. "I originally created the design for the March, 2000 EQ challenge "Think Spring." [We, at EQ actually used the design, with Sherry's permission, for one of the flyers we made promoting EQ4.] When the guild was trying to find a design for the quilt one of the members remembered seeing my quilt on the flyer. The guild asked me if I would mind if they used my design for the opportunity quilt. What a silly question. I'm thrilled to see the design as a finished quilt and I'm delighted with the results. The original design was for a wall hanging, but the guild wanted a large bed sized quilt, so I increased the block sizes, widened the side borders, and added the top and bottom double ribbon borders—simple to do with EQ.

The tree blocks, flower blocks, and ribbon borders were paper foundation pieced. Templates were used for the center star. The quilt is machine-pieced and hand-appliquéd and quilted.

Kathy Johnson's Journey Across North Dakota quilt

Kathy Johnson's Lewis and Clark quilt—Journey Across North Dakota — a Best of Show and Viewer's Choice winner in several North Dakota quilt shows, was juried into the AQS show in Nashville, Tennessee last summer. Kathy writes, "I started by doing seaches in BlockBase to find blocks that would work with the theme. I used Mariner's Compass, Crossed Canoes, Missouri River Valley, part of the Bear Paw and a block called Lewis and Clark. I made paper piecing templates to make the 24" X 36" compass center, printed on my HP 1220 printer! I also used the bison applique pattern that was designed by Sherry Cote' for my international round robin that we did together several years ago. My quilt will become part of the traveling exhibit the AQS museum is setting up for these quilts. I couldn't have done it without EQ! Well, maybe I could have, but it would have been a lot more work LOL!"

Jeanne Prue's Christmas Tree Quilted Tea Set as featured in Country Woman Christmas 2003

Jeanne Prue has an EQ5-designed project, a Christmas Tree Quilted Tea Set, featured in the book, Country Woman Christmas 2003. Jeanne designed two pot-holders, a tea-cosy and a placemat for the book. Jeanne generously offers free patterns on her site. See the latest block in her Wee Flower Patch Block of the Month

CONTENTS: Announcements -  Ask EQ -  Free Stuff -  Works For Me -  Show & Tell -  Quilter Community -  Quilt University -  A Quilt for Sean -  Club EQ -  Make it Simpler Paper Piecing -  EQ Mac Users Group -  Let's Make Marshmallows -  EQ & HP Sponsor Computer Labs -  Coming Soon from EQ -  Our Booth in Houston