Behind the Mouse: The Electric Quilt Blog

Tracing images can be tricky. It’s hard to think ahead and make sure that everything drawn on the screen is piecable at the sewing machine. With some practice, it gets easier to create incredible paper-piecing and applique blocks by tracing images. When I was younger I remember going to sewing events most Saturdays with my grandma. Some weeks it was machine embroidery club, block of the month, or just going to a quilt shop to socialize. One week at embroidery club, they showed how to make fabric post cards. I don’t remember much else about the meeting other than the fact that I liked this idea and wanted to make my own. Several years later, my grandma and I took a class at our local quilt shop that taught us how to take the concepts of art quilting and use that to make cards. I have taken what I learned

There are so many components to digitizing.  One of the obvious issues with some designs is the density.  Some stitch outs are so dense they are bullet proof and some are so loose in density you see spaces between your fill stitches.  The EQStitch program has a pre-set for the density and underlay stitches to be applied to any shape you create.  You can alter this in the properties bar on the stitch tab. Consider the design where there is one object layered on top of another.  A face would have this issue.  The face background is made first then the eyes, lips, nose, etc. are added details on top of the face background.  This creates several layers of stitches when using the program default settings.  Consider the artwork below.  The face has elements on top of the background.  The eyes have a pupil on top of the eye shape

Summer is in full swing and this month’s design is a large roomy tote.  It is a fun and quick design that features a great way to highlight a quilt block from the EQ Mini software.  I chose a beautiful applique design called Baltimore block to highlight on this tote.  I was keeping in mind how I was going to assemble this tote as I designed it.  The more you design, the easier it is to plan ahead for construction when designing your quilts to get the end result that you want.  Based upon a horizontal quilt layout, we play with row size, scale and colors to create this Summer Flora Tote. Summer Flora Quilted Tote Skillset: Beginner Size: 19″ x 40″ Skill Builders: Working with horizontal strip layout Editing a strip quilt Working with Borders Working with applique blocks Adding blocks Working with Size and Scale On to the design!

This past week we were lucky enough to be able to photograph a handful of Nancy Mahoney’s quilts. Her work is absolutely stunning and it was fun to find places that helped to show that. Take a look at some of the pictures we took! True Colors - Nancy Mahoney 2013 Crooked Path – Nancy Mahoney 2014 Split Star – Nancy Mahoney 2015 Gum Drops – Nancy Mahoney 2013 Infinity – Nancy Mahoney 2014 It’s really neat to see all that Nancy has been doing with EQ7! It has been so much fun to take quilts out that I have seen on the covers of her books and in magazines. It is surreal to see all of these quilts in person. Check out more of Nancy’s work on her website! Look for more of her photos in upcoming social media posts!

Quilting and Photography are two of my greatest loves, and recently I have been able to put them together. One of our EQ Artists, AnneMarie Chany, brought us a few quilts to photograph. Moccasin by AnneMarie Chany – Gen X Quilters The first quilt, Moccasin, she called her “Fourth Child” when she dropped it off. Her design is phenomenal with quilting just as stunning. Read more about her creation process for this quilt. We decided to go to the Wood County, OH Historical Society to take picture’s AnneMarie’s quilts. The structure that the quilt is hung on is an Oil Derrick, which was used to mine natural gas in the late 1800’s. We waited until the exact second that the wind died down to shoot this photo. Wind only stops for seconds at a time most days in windy Bowling Green, OH. Alternate views of Moccasin Purple Bonfire by AnneMarie Chany –

A few weeks ago we had a selection of Lori Miller’s quilts. We thought that the elements at a local community garden would compliment Lori’s work. Outdoor photo shoots are a blast. There are so many places to explore and there will always be something new. Have you ever taken some photographs and thought they were great until you got home and looked at them on your computer? Outdoor photo shoots are a lot of fun, but can also be tricky.  The week we had the quilts, it was either sunny or pouring rain, so we had a lot of trial and error to get good shots of her quilts. Ideal photography weather is overcast because there isn’t too much light causing harsh shadows. If it’s really sunny, I usually try to find as many shaded areas as I can and use those areas for my photos. As the day goes on and