The Electric Quilt Company: Users: Newsletters and EQ Mailings

CONTENTS: Announcements - Ask EQ - Free Stuff - Works For Me - Show & Tell - Quilt University - Hidden Block Quilts - Tessellating Fish - Designs by Alene - Karin Hellaby - Mischele Hart & Ann Castleberry - Color Printing Tips - Electric Quilt Computer Lab

Show & Tell
News from our talented users

EQ users have been busy getting their quilts into magazines, books and quilt shows this issue.

Diane Anderson

Diane Anderson, of Tomball, Texas, is one-for-one in quilt show entries, winning a ribbon for her first quilt show entry. Diane writes: "I entered my 9-11 quilt, Broken Rainbows, into the Oklahoma City Winter Quilt Show last weekend. I was shocked to see a 2nd place ribbon on it when we got there." Diane's quilt will also be in the touring exhibition and book, America:From the Heart. "I used EQ from start to finish (as usual) to design it, (complete with Stash fabrics), printed out the paper pieced blocks, and even designed and paper pieced the label." Visit Diane's Web site here.

Pat Tribbey and Tish Douglas run AOL's Quilting Community, using EQ to create their popular block of the month designs. See the results of one of their latest here.

Pat recently wrote about group of quilting friends that are participating in their BOM project: "I have been having some interesting correspondence with some quilters from the Bad Lands of the Dakotas! (Visits with quilting friends require 80 - 100 miles, round trip.) Linda C. and Linda L. are best friends and part of the quilting group that did the 2001 Beginner's quilt together as a group. Linda L. co-ordinated the group and used EQ to store all the blocks and have them available for others. Not all members of the group had computers.... I would call this a modern day Quilting Bee. They said that the local bank has asked them to display the quilts. Isn't that something! I am so glad they wrote to let Tish & I know about their quilting group. I know that I sure felt good inside."

Faith Bluma's
"Playing with Color: Sister's Choice"

Kathy Johnson's Quilt

Faith Bluma of Custer Wisconsin designed a quilt for Kathy Johnson of Alexander, North Dakota without even knowing it. Here's the story: Faith and Kathy both participated in the February 2002 clubEQ challenge on our Web site. Challenge participants receive all of the month's challenge projects, and when Kathy saw Faith's design she liked it so much she used it to make a quilt for her sister. Kathy wrote to Faith, "I thought you might be interested in seeing a quilt done which started with the quilt you designed for the Sister's Choice Challenge in Feb. My baby sister just graduated from high school last month and I hadn't been inspired to start her quilt yet. Then we got the challenge projects and thought maybe that would work for inspiration. My mom had mentioned that she liked the Celestial look so when I saw your design it was a great jumping off point. I wanted a twin size quilt so I made more blocks to add but the center is basically your design (except for the colors). I just love participating in the challenges, there are so many wonderful ideas that come out if it. Thank you for participating!" For more information on the current clubEQ challenge, and how to join, click here.

Dorothy Milligan's
Stars and Stripes

Dorothy Milligan's colorful Stars and Stripes quilt was featured on the cover of Quilter's World magazine (February 2003). Dorothy writes that the quilt, "was one of my first quilts and was the reason I bought EQ when it first came out. I couldn't find a pattern or even a name for the block so I drew this on graph paper and built the quilt as I went along. I figured there had to be an easier way. I did have to put it into EQ5 to make the pattern for the magazine. Other quilts that I designed in EQ will be patterned in future issues." Dorothy is from Hemet, California.

Linda Hall
Colorplay

Linda Hall, of Douglassville, Pennsylvania uses EQ5 to make sample quilts for Andover Fabrics (by Concord). Here first EQ4 quilt, Colorplay, was published in the book, Heirloom Quilts From Old Tops, by Patricia Morris and Jeanette Muir for Krause Publications. She writes, "I travel and do trunk shows (37 in the past 2 years in 5 states) and explain that this quilt was designed in EQ4. Many are intrigued but it is really a very simple design."

Quilt Maker

Elaine Theriault, of Mississauga, Ontario, writes: "There is a project in Canada called 'The Quilt Project' It was started several years ago by a woman who had breast cancer. People donate quilts to be auctioned, raising funds for breast cancer research. Last year, one of our members from an on-line Canadian guild thought it would be a good idea for our group to participate in this project. So Carole and I organized a group project and donated a large quilt to the cause.

This year, Carole came up with the idea of using the Quiltmaker's Gift fabric line from Benartex. She went to work with EQ4 to come up with a design that would allow our group members to participate. Over the course of two months, she sent me numerous EQ4 project files with many quilt designs/colorings in each. I reviewed them and passed my comments back to her, mostly by e-mail. (We live several hours apart and have no time to actually get together.) One last phone call finalized the design and it was complete.

There are approximately 50 women across Canada making the 102 six-inch blocks required for the quilt. Carole and a number of her friends will piece the top. I will embroider the name of each block on the sashing, then quilt and bind it. There is no way we could have done the design without the aid of EQ4.

BlockBase also came in handy. The source of the six-inch blocks was a block list inside the dust jacket of the story book, The Quiltmaker's Gift (which the fabric line is based on). Well -- a number of people would blindly choose a block. When they tried to find a six-inch pattern for the block, many had difficulty. So I found all but about 2 or 3 of the blocks in BlockBase. We have just finished the design and are about to sew!"

Lisa Walton, of Sydney, Australia, wrote an article for Computer Craft magazine (issue 7) showing how to make her Starry Nights quilt in EQ4. Lisa's instructions included scanning your own fabric, adding it to EQ4, designing the quilt in EQ4, and finally, sewing the quilt. Lisa sells a fabric kit for the quilt on her Web site.

And Waved to Me

Tish Douglas's EQ-designed flag quilt, And Waved to Me, got national attention when it appeared on the front page of Coldwater Creek's online web store last September. Tish designed the quilt last year, in respect for September 11, 2001. Click here for complete directions for making the Tish's quilt, and here to see a gallery of quilts made from this pattern. Tish is from Plantation, Florida.

Mary Ellen Kranz's
Flower-photo

EQ5 teacher, Mary Ellen Kranz's flower-photo quilts were featured in American Quilter magazine (Spring 2003) in her article "Joyful Image Quilts." Mary Ellen showed how she took photographs of flowers, manipulated the images in Paint Shop Pro, printed the flower images onto fabric, then made the quilt using block designs from EQ5 to hold her flower-photo fabrics. Mary Ellen will be teaching a two-day "Using Electric Quilt Software" class at Quilting by the Lake as well as in Cazenovia, New York from July 21-22, 2003. Mary Ellen is from Greensboro, North Carolina.

Dana Hancock's EQ-designed quilt, "In the Morning Light," was juried into the International Quilting Association show, Quilts: A World of Beauty, held last November in Houston, Texas. Dana says, "I was so pleased when it went to the AQS show in Paducah [spring 2002]. Now I think it has a life of its own." Dana lives in Chantilly, Virginia.

Marion Watchinski's "Confetti" scrap quilt is featured in Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine (September/October 2002). You can see more of Marion's published quilts on her
Web site. Marion lives in Overland Park, Kansas.

Gay Bomers, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, used BlockBase identify patterns in a great 1930s sampler quilt she collected with 187 four-inch blocks. Gay calls this sampler quilt, "Week by Week: The 1930s Sampler Quilt," and you can see it on her Web site.