2010 - December Newsletter

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Happy Holidays from all of us at The Electric Quilt Company!
Dean, Andrea, Ann, Heidi, Jan, Jenny, Katie, Linda, Margaret, Penny,
Sara S., Sara W., and Sarah S.

We know you've been good. Tell Santa what EQ goodies you want beneath your tree. Just fill out our "Dear Santa" (PDF) list. We also offer Gift Certificates. Call our elves at 1-800-356-4219 (M-F, 9-5 EST).

Still unsure about upgrading to EQ7? Senior editor Kathy Patterson writes a fun and informative review of her personal experience in jumping back into EQ. Kathy had dabbled in EQ5 and EQ6 but was left unenthused until she explored EQ7! Kathy says, “I was having fun, feeling confident, I was in love!” Pick up a copy of McCall’s Quilting Jan/Feb 2011 issue to read the full 3 page EQ7 exploration!

See the top 10 reasons quilters are loving EQ7.

 

 

Which sites do you visit the most (other than www.electricquilt.com! *wink*)? Please take our quick survey!

 

Packed with scans of the brand new fabrics now in stores or coming soon. All new. So cool! True-scale swatches sized perfectly to use in EQ6 or EQ7. STASH Fall 2010 gives you an all new collection of over 4600 new fabrics from 28 different fabric manufacturers -- the best fabric in the quilting industry.

 

Thanks to all you EQ5 owners who have taken advantage of our special offer. If YOU still are using EQ5, take advantage of this "we want you back" offer. Click to read more about how to move on up to EQ7 now!

Save money by learning to draw your own block patterns. Save time by letting an expert show you how. Take advantage of our special price on the two books -- Pieced Drawing and Appliqué Drawing -- that teach you to draw like a pro. The two drawing books developed for EQ6 are still perfect for EQ7! Save 50% on each.

Try before you buy:

Free lesson from EQ6 Pieced Drawing (PDF)

Free lesson from EQ6 Appliqué Drawing (PDF)

Quilter's Paradise is the San Diego area's premier, full-service quilt shop offering high-quality quilting fabrics, laser-cut kits and services, professional Longarm quilting services, and a comprehensive set of quilting classes for quilters of all experience levels.  Everything you need to learn and use EQ is available including EQ software, EQ books, and a free EQ club which you can join any time and learn how to use EQ in a step-by-step fashion.



Visit Quilter’s Paradise
www.quiltersparadiseesc.com
1451 Montiel Road, Suite 140
Escondido, CA 92026

Read more from Quilter’s Paradise:
http://tinyurl.com/2ako863

Congratulations to Ellen Born who won our new STASH Fall 2010 CD by guessing that the number of fabrics in our new STASH was 4699. Unbelievably, Ellen’s guess was exactly right!

Guess the name of the block below. The winner will receive a copy of Mary Ellen Kranz's book, Blending Photos with Fabric 2!


Entry Deadline: December 31
To enter, send an email with your guess (one guess per person) to our "Contest Contessa" Sarah Shriver:

To: sarahshriver@electricquilt.com
Subject line: Block Name Contest
Body: Your guess for the name of the block.
Your Full Name:
Your Email:

Ever wonder what it might be like to be a girl in an all-boys school? Find out from Liza Lucy, who used EQ7 to capture her college era.

Brenda Sutherland wins 1st place in McCall's Quilting Challenge 2 Contest. Congratulations, Brenda! Read about Brenda's winning EQ7 design, "A New Horizon." Then read more about her here.

Love, love seeing MORE new quilts this month in the "EQ Quilt Gallery."

To exhibit YOUR quilt: send us a photo of your quilt, plus your EQ project containing the EQ design for this same quilt. Tell us a bit about you, your quilt, your designing, etc. List your website or blog if you have them. Send to: penny@electricquilt.com. We love seeing what you're making and knowing more about you.

Kitty #3 is just as adorable as the rest in Regina Grewe's Kitty Kitty Kitty block series. See it here.

You can download this embroidery for satin stitching in a pink ribbon design into EQ6 or EQ7. Find the embroidery design here (download the .exp file for use in EQ6 and EQ7).

1. Choose to save, not open, the .exp file.
2. Save to your Desktop.
3. In EQ6 or EQ7: click LIBRARIES > Embroidery Library > Import > from .exp files. Browse to Desktop. Click the .exp file. Click Open. You’ll see a message about not getting the .rgb file (that means the .exp file does not contain the color (rgb = red green blue) information, so the ribbon is green, not pink). No worries.
4. Click the Add to Sketchbook button.
5. Click Layer 3 on the Quilt worktable.
6. Click the Set Embroidery tool. Set the embroidery on your quilt.
7. Recolor using the Set Thread tool. (Don’t see these tools? See grey note, page 270, about adding tools to the toolbar.)

And that's not all! See Sindy Rodenmayer's page of Christmas PDF patterns. If you love Sindy's patterns, check out her CD of 12 BOMs.

Karen offers you free patterns from her site: http://www.chickenladyquilts.com/eqlibrary.asp

Diane Anderson starts a whole year of beautiful desktop calendars for you. Check them out here!

Wondering what an EQ club is like? Read SewCal Gal’s blog about it. Also, learn how to create appliqué designs in EQ7 using AccuQuilt Dies. Learn how to do it here.

Check out Judy Butcher's daily EQ quilt design and see what Glynis Thompson has designed during the month.

Barb's delicious homemade marshmallow recipe (PDF) is one we share every December. It is delicious, impressive, and fun to make (especially with kids). We've actually toasted these marshmallows over candles in restaurants with Barb and even had waiters joining in on the fun. 'Tis the season to be silly: make some marshmallows!

Deck a quilt with a border of Christmas lights. Fa la la… la de da.
Download the EQ6 project
Download the EQ7 project

Perfect way to print gift tags? Print blocks this way: Select a block on the quilt. Click FILE > Print > Block > Showing Fabrics > Set the size for 2” x 2” or 3” x 3” > click the Options tab > choose "Print as many as fit". Cut tags apart and hole punch to string ribbon through. NOTE: Remember to uncheck "Print as many as fit" when through printing.
Download the EQ6 project
Download the EQ7 project

Our friends at Better Home and Gardens American Patchwork and Quilting magazine made this free holiday project especially for EQ7 owners.

This month's download, "Brights", tied for second place last month. 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.

Connecting Threads has made EQ Library files of their fabric collections available especially for EQ6 or EQ7 users. 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 (or My EQ7)\USER\ folder on your hard drive.
3) Open EQ6 (or EQ7) and your fabric library. The collection will appear in your "MY LIBRARY" folder.

Moda has new fabrics available to download as jpeg files, ready to be opened in EQ6 or EQ7.

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 - 144 in the EQ6 User Manual. Or see pages 62 – 63 in EQ7 User Manual.)

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

Benni Harper Mystery Lesson 10 is here! Create Sunshine and Shadow variations as you learn to find colors with the eyedropper to color grid square blocks you’ve drawn.

It’s sign-up time for Fran Gonzalez’s first online EQ7 class offered by Quilt University. The class begins January 7.

Bonnie will teach a 5-session online “Basics of EQ7” class starting January 15, 2011 offered by www.quiltcampus.net.

- To Bee or Not to Bee - an interview with Christine Brown, Editor of American Quilter magazine, about her local EQ7 Quilting Bee
- The "almost last" Bennie Harper lesson
- A New Years contest
- And more free projects