EQ Blog

We recently learned that EQ Printables are mentioned in one of The Quilt Show episodes titled Quilting in the Digital Age (Episode 702) available now on their blog! How cool is that!?

Speaking of quilting in this digital age, Digital Essentials by Gloria Hansen, isfull of information on how to get the best color printouts from your inkjet printer. The book also teaches you how to take better digital photos, how to properly work with digital files.

Digital Essentials is a Best Book Awards Winner! Author Gloria Hansen is a quilt artist, writer, and mixed media designer. She knows her stuff! Check out her website to learn more about her.

Find our directions for this On-the-Go Art Tote in SEQ Professional magazine this month! The images were manipulated and printed from EQ7 and printed on EQ Printables fabrics.

Betty Dalton considers herself a computer novice and beginning quilter. EQ Tech Support begs to differ.
We love Betty. Every time she calls for help on a recent project, it’s not a beginning project… it’s something extremely complex. We’ve seen a traced appliqué palm tree in a large center medallion, a complex Lone Star quilt that goes “off the grid” and swirls in the center, and other amazing non-beginner projects.

Recently she submitted 2 quilts to the Pidgeon Forge Quilt Fest 2010- one in the Nontraditional category and one in the Challenge category. Betty and won honors on both quilts!

This quilt was made with photos of southerners Betty admired (Homer Hickam, Dolly Parton, Maya Angelou, and others). She won for Best Machine Quilting in the MOUNTAIN HERITAGE CHALLENGE - STAR POWER WINNERS category.

This appliqué was traced and then digitized. It won in the NON-TRADITIONAL QUILTS category.

Betty tells us about her challenge quilt:
I used Electric Quilt extensively including receiving advice from Andrea. I had a theme to follow as well as the fabric that was selected for me. Being a beginning quilter I did not know the name of the eight-pointed star that would provide rectangular space for the photos of the Southern Stars. Andrea helped me locate the rolling star block library. The block library provided the alphabet for paper piecing. I used technology not only to create the platform for displaying the heroes, but also for digitizing the frames surrounding each person. The built-in stitches on my ancient Bernina generated the tiny stars (one at a time) on the side panels.

The super stars were personal heroes of mine:
Dr. Dolly Parton for promoting reading to the children of her home county in Tn.

Chief Junaluska for trying to help save the Cherokee from the awful trek to Oklahoma known as the trail of tears.

Dr. Charles Townes, Nobel Prize winner and inventor of the maser then the laser. Probably the most important physicist of the 20th century who grew up in a neighboring community. He came to my classroom when he spoke at my middle school. I taught some of his nieces and nephews.

Homer Hikam who was the National Science Fair Winner that later became associated with the space program in Huntsville, Al. He is currently a writer who wrote “Rocket Boys” that was made into a movie “October Sky”.

Dr. Maya Angelou, poetess, who teaches at Wake Forest in N. C.

President Dr. Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Prize, who has led the drive to provide housing around the world.

Dr. Michael De Bakey who invented the first mechanical heart.

Major General Charles Bolden who is the head of NASA right now.

Finally, I tied the whole thin up with one of John Wesley’s (he was sent with Oglethorpe to help settle Georgia) famous quotes:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

The laurel wreath and roses are symbols for excellence.

Betty thank you so much for sharing your quilts with us! Beautiful work.

We found this fun idea on Sew4Home’s project blog that we wanted to share with you. It’s a really cute fabric and paper envelope project that’s perfect for Valentine’s Day cards. Follow Sew4Home’s instructions to make this cute envelope.
You could even use EQ Printable Fabrics to print your own custom fabric for the envelope!

Give a homemade gift of love this Valentine’s Day! Download the EQ6 quilt project “Happy Valentine’s Day” and Printable Quilt Label and you’ll be ready to sew for someone special! The EQ6 project includes fabrics form various fabric manufacturers and a Valentine quilt label in the Photos section of your sketchbook. Apply your own personal text to the image and then print on to EQ Printables Fabric Sheets for an instant quilt label! Share the free project with your customers and sell some Printable Fabric Sheets in the process!

Click here to download the Quilt Design Wizard version of Happy Valentine’s Day!

If you are looking for a few last minute home made gift ideas, EQ staffer Heidi has a great one! She is making photo ornaments of her son Derek for her whole family. She used EQ6 to create a star block then put Derek’s photo in the center and then she’ll print his photo onto EQ Printable fabric. She plans to make them all just a little bit different and says that EQ6 makes it so each for her to plan each one. What a fun little stocking stuffer for the family, no?! Now lets just hope none of them see it on the blog first!

Barbara Campbell is a professional designer from New Jersey. Some of her fabric has been featured in Stash and she loves EQ Printables. Barbara says, “I endorse the EQ Printables, which I really like. I used another product in an earlier quilt and after it was washed, it faded considerably.”

She made a floral vest using the EQ Printables that was featured in the September issue of The Quilter Magazine (pg. 67). Barbara walks you through the steps of printing out images on fabric and how she incorporated it into her vest. The bold colors of the flowers are really captured in the printable fabric.

Looks great, Barbara! Is this giving anyone else any ideas?

A few months ago, Patricia Rhudy wrote in to say: “Just had to send you a note to tell you how much I love my EQ software. We are getting ready to celebrate our 30th anniversary this year, so of course I have been designing a quilt for the celebration. I was thinking that I wanted to make a quilt with 30 blocks that would have pictures highlighting special occasions from the last 30 years. I love the feature of adding a photo to any layer of my quilt because it helps me to determine what size the photos should be.

When my husband asked me what I wanted for our anniversary, I told him that I wanted something that he made. I knew that I wanted to make him a special quilt. I will send you a picture when I complete the quilt.”

Anniversaries are special, especially when you make it all the way to 30. We asked Patricia to tell us more about the anniversary quilt she designed in EQ send a picture. Of course, she is presenting it to her husband this weekend.

Patricia Rhudy writes: “The quilt is finished and I will be giving it to my husband on Sunday. You will notice that the quilt has an oriental feel about it. I did that because my husband gave me my engagement ring in New York’s Chinatown. We were there with his parents and went to a special dinner at the Hunan Gardens restaurant. After dinner we went shopping and purchased a set of dishes that were black, red, and white with an oriental pattern.

Since this is our 30th anniversary I made the quilt with 30 blocks and each block has a picture of something special that happened during those years. It was really hard to pick the pictures to use. It helped that I was able to audition them in EQ6. There have been so many wonderful things that we have experienced during these past 30 years. Our two daughters have grown up to be wonderful wives and mothers. They are both actively involved in giving back to their communities. I am so very proud of my daughters and can say that as a family we have truly been blessed many times over. My DH has always been there for me and is my “BFF” (best friend forever) and the love of my life.

My friend, Elaine Novak, machine quilted it for me with butterflies around the pictures and bamboo on the borders. I am attaching the pattern in EQ6 so you can see how I mapped out my quilt.

We are meeting our family for the weekend and will have a celebratory brunch on Sunday. That is when we will exchange gifts. I will send you another e-mail next week letting you know what my DHs special handmade gift was.

The black fabrics that I used in my quilt and the red fabric that I used was a Robert Kaufman print from the “Made in Japan” line.”

Congratulations to you both. Thanks for sharing your story. Here’s to many more happy years to come.

Katrina Hamer is leader of the EQT’s in Oregon and teaches Electric Quilt 6 and Quilt Design Wizard. (Check our class listings to see if there is something offered close to you.) She has taught for us at Quilt Market in the past and we love working with her!

She recently sent us a project she made for a friend of hers. Katrina says, “I designed this pillow as a birthday gift for my friend Gretchen, who is a sophomore at WSU. As you can see by the pictures, she is an Alpha Omicron Pi sister. I designed it in EQ6, importing the photos and playing with the borders until deciding that fairly simple was the way to finish it. I then “designed” a quilt with just the photos, no borders, and printed that “quilt” on EQ Printables Fabric sheets. I backed the photo quilt with batting and stitched around each photo (see close up). Then I sewed the borders as designed. I embellished it (see close up) with some scrapbook charms, sewed the pillow back on and stuffed the pillow form into it. I think she’ll love it!”

We think she’ll love it too! It’s so nice to give someone a gift that will be a keepsake for years to come. Wonderful job Katrina!

Over the weekend The EQ women all gathered to celebrate another anticipated arrival… yes now I, Sarah Shriver, am pregnant… EQ baby number 7! My husband and I are expecting our baby girl named Ashtyn Elizabeth on August 3rd. The baby shower was beautiful and every corner was decorated but the highlight of the decor were the Peel-N-Stick onsies with Ashtyn’s name on them that hung above the fireplace. Yup, that’s Peel-N-Stick spelling out her name. It was so cute and what a fun use for the sticky fabric!

THE OBSERVATION
Jean Biddick wrote us this week with an observation about soaking her printable fabric sheets. She writes:

“This week I’ve been working on a major project and had several sheets to rinse. They came out great. Then I trimmed one of the images without adding a seam allowance and had to print that sheet over again. This time the edges (ink) ran. And this time, because I had just done several other sheets with good results, I was able to figure out what I had done differently. The good ones were done in a large glass baking pan. The bad one was done in the kitchen sink - a stainless steel sink. My guess is that something in the metal sink is reacting with the chemicals in the ink.”

WHAT WE LEARNED
This got our wheels turning. Why would the stainless steel cause the ink to bleed? After some research it appears we know why. Stainless steel can be either reactive or nonreactive based on its composition (if you’re a chef you know where I’m going with this). So if you place certain reactive items into a reactive stainless steel bowl you will notice chemical changes to the item - if you’re cooking an acidic tomato in a reactive pot, for example, the tomato’s flavor will be altered.

So we investigated the chemical composition of inkjet inks, both pigment based and dye based inks. Pigment based inks have a reactive component and dye based inks do not.

SO THE VERDICT IS
If you print with pigment based inks onto your printable inkjet fabric sheet and then soak the fabric in a reactive stainless steel container the ink may have a reaction and bleed slightly.

WE SUGGEST
Just soak your fabrics in a glass or plastic container. Nobody wants to go through all the trouble of figuring out if their bowl is reactive or not or what ink they use in their printer.

So there’s your science lesson for the day! Just Thanks for the heads up Jean!

We took this adorable Paper Doll Tote bag to Market in Pittsburgh and offered the pattern and instructions to our retailers so that they can pass it on to you! Check with your retailer to find out if they have the pattern or if they are hosting a class on the project. If not, let them know they can get the pattern from us so they can pass it on to you!

We recently had some EQ6 designed quilt entries to our Quilt Gallery that incorporated printable fabrics. We thought we’d share them with you here as well! The image to the left is the project in EQ and the image to the right is the completed quilt in fabric and printable fabric with photos. Make sure to check out the Quilt Gallery from time to time to see what other EQers are creating.

“Sue Gruber of Bowling Green currently has an award-winning quilt on display at the 33rd Annual Quilt Show at Sauder Village in Archbold, which opened Tuesday and runs through Sunday.
Her entry entitled “Going, Going, Gone?” received first place in the wall quilts open class hand- or machine-quilted category.
Thousands of quilt enthusiasts are visiting Archbold this week for the popular show. Sauder Village pays tribute to the craftsmanship of quilters from across the Midwest with a display of nearly 400 quilts in Founder’s Hall, quilting demonstrations and workshops.
Both traditional and modern interpretations of quilts are represented. Even after 33 years, the show is still a new experience since once a quilt has been exhibited it cannot be re-entered into the Sauder show. With categories ranging from pieced and appliqué to mixed media, contemporary art and youth quilts in bed, wall and contemporary art quilts as well as miniature, youth and baby quilts, the variety is impressive.”
-from the Sentinel-Tribune

Read the full article here.

 
Congratulations, Sue! This quilt is beautiful!

It’s hard to believe that our blog is 5 years old. Penny was looking through the posts today and found some really great pictures of Printable Fabric quilts and projects. There were so many that we created a new category on our blog.

Check out these quilts and projects made with our EQ Printables: Inkjet Fabric Sheets.

Do you have a printable fabric quilt you’d like to show? If so, email the picture and story to penny@electricquilt.com.