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

Website Spotlight: The Quilter Community
EQ user Dori Hawks uses EQ5 to create the patterns offered on her Web site. We asked her more about her site here.

Q: Hi Dori. How would you describe your site?

A: TheQuilterCommunity.com is a subscription-based online quilting magazine. There are great articles, tips, blocks and patterns, a gallery of quilts, as well as a Community Area to ask and answers questions from other quilters. We have articles by quilters such as Ricky Tims and Libby Lehman and patterns by Cynthia England, Kaye Wood, Karen Combs, and others. We are comparable to a print magazine, but online and always available. All of our information is archived, so you will be able to reference back to and re-read an article or pattern.

Q: When and why did you start it?

A: The web site came online just after the first of February, 2003. Our son, who has been working in the computer/web field for a long time had a dream of building a very large web site, and came to me with the idea and a business plan for a quilting information web site. I love everything to do with quilting and it has become my obsession, so I am the "quilty" side and David and his wife Janet are the computer side of our family business. We are actually the first all-online quilting magazine and not a part of any other retail quilting web site.

Q: Your Web site is so full of patterns, articles and information; it's almost hard for a new visitor to get a handle on it all. Can you describe the main offerings, and we can link in to sample them?

A: Our main areas are Home, Information, Patterns, Gallery, and Community; each section displays the most recent and popular offerings as well as search and sort options. You can sort the patterns and articles by type appliqué, piecing, machine, etc) or search using a keyword.

We have patterns you can print out with suggestions for different colorways and settings, there is a quilt gallery that people can post pictures of their quilts like a show 'n tell, even an area where you can enter your quilt into the Quilt Of The Month (a viewer's choice) and win a prize (this month it is $150 worth of fabric from Classic Cottons).

There are also areas highlighted in the left-hand navigation bar called On The Road, In The Studio, Quilt Shop Locator and Quilting Events Finder linked to Yahoo maps so you can get directions and maps. Guilds, shops, teachers and quilt shows can enter a free listing on theQuilterCommunity.com. This is just a few of the many offerings at www.thequiltercommunity.com

Q: Are you the Webmaster? In other words, do you handle all of this yourself?

A: No, I do all the editing and gathering of the information, patterns, and articles that are posted on the site. The actual posting is done by Janet Hawks (our Daughter-in-Law), while the design, functionality, and technical side of the site is done by David Hawks (our son).

Q: What particular parts of your site would you like to point out to EQ users?

A: Almost all of the patterns have been designed in EQ5, and we are interested in having others submit designs for theQuilterCommunity.com. In fact, Ila McCallum [an EQ-user/teacher] has designed two Blocks Of The Month Series that we will be posting the first quarter of 2004.

Q: And now, the question EQ the Mouse makes me ask: how do you use EQ in creating stuff for your site?

A: I do most of the patterns, and found that without EQ5 I would not have been able to do that job. I have no computer training, so I do not have a background in design with any other software out there.

Last year at this time I was taking online classes in Electric Quilt, reading my manuals, doing the exercises, and a whole new world opened up for me! I feel much more confident this year and learned some very new and exciting things from Andrea [EQ staff member Andrea Poulimenos] and Barbara [EQ author/teacher Barb Vlack] at International Quilt Festival in Houston last year that really opened up new doors for designing. Andrea has been super helpful at the shows I attended in Chicago and Portland. Each time I come away with new ideas to try.

One of the things she taught me last spring helped me write and design my first book to be published this spring from ASN Publishing. Thank you all very much for this wonderful program. I have found that I actually like computer quilting…it is fun and exciting! Come visit www.thequiltercommunity.com.

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