2011 - January Newsletter

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Happy New Year to all (and to all a good quilt!).

 

 

Read our special TO-DO list to help you learn your new program.

 

 

Our EQ7 Upgrade offer gives you the FULL EQ7 at a saving of $100. See what you're missing: What's new – what's hot!

Confessions of an Electric Quilt Novice: McCall's Quilting Explores EQ7! 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.

EQ5 owners can take advantage of our "we want you back" offer. Read more about how to move on up to EQ7 now!

 

Owners of Amy Butler Softwares can download and install this second free fabric and project update. It adds Amy's new SOUL BLOSSOMS quilting/fashion, home dec and laminated fabrics by Amy for Rowan, plus her free SUNSHINE QUILT project, in addition to Amy's LOVE fabric line. This makes it possible for you to mix and match Amy's fabrics in any project.

Download now!

 

Close To Home offers Basic EQ7 classes as a launch class for their newly purchased quilt design software with a follow up class for those seeking a deeper understanding of the product and its capabilities. Contemplating purchasing the software? We always welcome you to try before they buy. Our customers have found this hands-on approach a more meaningful way to learn the software. (Read more....)

Close to Home - 3 Locations
www.closetohomesewing.com

45 South Main ST
Unionville, CT 06085
860-675-4481

2717 Main ST
Glastonbury, CT 06033
860-633-0721

196 Boston Post Rd
Orange, CT 06477
203-878-1654

Aloha! A newly announced 14-day (Feb. 4 – 18, 2012) Hawaiian cruise features an "EQ Academy" taught by author/designer/teacher Barb Vlack. This multi-day course will help you learn all aspects of EQ7, from design concept, through design, to a small finished sewn project. Other teachers include Rose Hughes, Sylvia Pippen, Laura Wasilowski and Janet Jones Worley. Read more details here.

 

 

Linda's new book is New York Beauty Simplified, with 21 projects using a simple foundation-piecing method. Congratulations, Linda!

 

 

 

 

Congrats to Kerry Grant, winner of December’s “Guess the Name of the Block” contest. Kary wins a copy of Blending Photos with Fabric 2 by Mary Ellen Kranz. Kerry’s correct answer, chosen randomly from all correct answers was: “Yuletide” – BlockBase ID #1509.

 

Use any or all of the letters in our company name: The Electric Quilt Company

Make as many words as you can.
• For each new word, you can use as many or as few of the available letters as you'd like.
• Use only the letters available. For example: There are only 3 letter E's in our full company name. So you may use no more than 3 letter E's in any one word.
• You may not use the proper name of a person as a word. For example: Ellie would not count as a word, because it is a person's name.
• Words must be in English. (Sorry to all our wonderful non-English-speaking users!)

The winner wins an Amy Butler Softwares program. To enter, send an email with 1) your list of words and 2) the total number of words (one guess per person) before January 31, 2011:

To: heidi@electricquilt.com
Subject line: Wordmaker Contest
Body: Your list of words and the number of words you have listed.
Your Full Name:
Your Email:

Do Bee Do Bee Do…Christine Brown, Editor-in-Chief of American Quilter magazine, tells us about her EQ Bee. Read her story.

 

 

 

Carol recreated our "Countdown to Christmas" quilt which ran in The Quilter magazine, so we blogged about it. Get the project and directions too.

Keep em coming! Counting the 10 new quilts we’ve just added – we’re now up to 170 quilts. Let’s see YOURS 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.

 

New Year -- New BOM starting up. Check out this stunning new Granny's Hanky quilt Denise Russart is offering. Check back often to get blocks. Once they're up, they're only available for a limited time. Her BOM = WOW!

 

 

 

 

Denise will offer a free design each month for a 30" seasonal wallhanging with a 16" center block. New designs posted the third week of each month, so bookmark her site.

 

Thanks for sharing these adorable foundation-pieced cat patterns with us all, Regina. Love your designs!

Linda Poole has made her Heart Swirl applique pattern, shown in the January 2011 American Quilter magazine, available to you as a free EQ7 block motif to download. Download from the American Quilter site. See sewing instructions for her Elegant Hearts Table Runner, using this design, on page 59 of the January 2011 issue.

 

Sindy Rodenmayer takes the cake with this perfect free project to frost with your favorite fabs!

 

 

 

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

 

LOOK AHEAD – LOOK BACK
The New Year is a time for looking back as well as forward. Ruth Paul remembers the year she made 9 Log Cabin quilts for her family for Christmas. And she’s still sane enough to talk about it, so let her tell the story.

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

We all NEED a New Year! Yes? Celebrate the year of 1/1/11 and 11/1/11 and 11/11/11 with this quick quilt.
Download the EQ6 project
Download the EQ7 project

 

Love EQ7? Let the world know with a blog badge for your blog or website! Download now!

Download our free New Year's Fireworks project which puts star points in a quarter-log cabin.
Download the EQ6 project
Download the EQ7 project

 

This month's download is "Batik Palette”. 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.

This "next to last" lesson, Broken Dishes, differentiates between the Swap All Colors tool and using CTRL+Paintbrush. It's easy, quick, and allows for color play as you experiment on your own.

Note your calendar: Fran's January EQ7 Sampler class filled fast. So she's offering another session of her EQ7 Sampler class at Quilt University. The class begins February 25. Registration opens January 21. Read more...

 

Watch this quick video to see how Reeze creates a new block by editing one from the library.

 

Resolve to take the clubEQ Challenge each month this year. Challenge-master Barb Vlack proposes a new quilt design challenge monthly. Anneke de Weerdt of The Netherlands wrote that she had resolved to join the challenge throughout 2010 and will again in 2011. She added, "Many thanks to Barb Vlack for her efforts to come up with the challenges." We LOVE her designs!

- Winner of the Wordmaker contest
- New contest
- “Behind the Scenes” interview with EQ’s Marketing Director, Sarah Shriver
- Benni Harper mystery lesson 12 – The final lesson