Welcome to the Electric Quilt (EQ) blog hop celebrating "A Year of Red and White Quilt Challenges". This blog hop is all about inspiring quilters to have fun creating designs using Electric Quilt Software. And, in keeping with the theme of this event, designing Red and White projects in EQ software.
You may be a designer, want to be designer, a quilter that uses Electric Quilt Software to create your own unique designs or for a variety of other reasons, or curious about EQ software to be able to have fun and get inspired by this blog hop. The participants in the blog hop this will be sharing tips, tutorials, inspirational projects and you may even find a giveaway in this hop!
EQ software is also popular with many that purchase patterns and want to use EQ software to plan color options, audition fabrics, or "tweak" purchase designs.
Here is the line up for all the blogs that we hope you will want to visit this week, for more insights on using EQ software and more fun!
Monday, January 27th
- SewCalGal (where you are today)
Tuesday, January 28th
Wednesday, January 29th
Thursday, January 30th
Friday, January 31st
Winding Ways in red and white fabrics can quickly be made in EQ7, as there is a pre-existing block for this design.
Year of Red and White Quilt challenges is open to designers, teachers and quilters who may have previously made a red and white quilt as well as those that want to make one, or make another one. There are several challenges and three virtual quilt shows, plus many wonderful sponsors that have generously donated great prizes (not all have been announced). There are also fabric manufacturers that have donated and even a possibility that those that enter a design in the Design It! Challenge may win an opportunity to turn their design into a free pattern for a fabric manufacturer, as well as make their design with fabric provided to this winner from the fabric manufacturer.
February 3rd-9th is a Red and White Quilt Show for quilts made prior to 2014. SewCalGal invites everyone that has such a quilt to share and encourage others to make their own red and white quilt.
February 10th - March 23rd is the Design It! Challenge that is open up to professional designers, want to be designers ,quilters than enjoy designing our own projects, as well as quilters that just want a challenge to design. You need not use any Electric Quilt software to design your quilt but for those of us that do use EQ software, we do think it is easier so this is a great opportunity to open up your EQ software and create play. To clarify, this is a design challenge where you need not make your design. You'll simply need to create a design file (e.g. jpg or take a photo of your design drawing). And it will be open to bloggers and non-bloggers.
Professional designers and others may want to enter just a sneak peak of their design, as they reserve the right to sell their design by turning it into a pattern later. But some may want to provide a tutorial for their design that they enter. Either way is fine in this Design It! Challenge. But Designs need to be your own. You can not copy another design and enter it in this challenge as your own design!
March 24th - September 10th is the Make It! Challenge where you have plenty of time to make your project that you designed, or use a purchased pattern or even a free pattern. This challenge is all about making a red/white quilt project in 2014. Any size, any design that you make in 2014 can be entered in this challenge.
There will be two virtual quilt shows late 2014:
Phase 4 - Show It - Part 2 - You Made It/You Designed It
Everyone that makes a red and white quilt in 2014 is invited to enter one of the virtual quilt shows. Which one simply depends if you designed your own quilt that you make in 2014 vs you make a red and white quilt using someone else's design.
Here is my quick EQ7 tip of the Day (I'll be sharing more this week):
SewCalGal loves using EQ7 to audition colors and fabrics, before making a project. This software comes with loads of fabrics and colors, but there are several ways to add more fabrics to your software:
1) EQStash is a digital fabric library that can be purchased and used in your EQ software. Previously EQ frequently introduced a new STASH CD every Spring and Fall, but they recently introduced their latest version in a downloadable format that you can purchase at the EQ online store. It has over 1,400 digital fabrics, from eleven fabric manufacturers. And the new digital version is so reasonably priced you'll love it.
2) Fabrics of the Month: Every month quilters can download a free collection of digital fabrics (~30).
3) You can scan in your own fabrics
4) Add-on software packages (e.g. Amy Butler Software, Blockbase, Star Power, Karen K. Stone More Quilts, etc.) also come with more fabrics that you can use in any of your projects.
Check back this week as SewCalGal will share more tips and insights on how to have fun creating with EQ software. But don't forget to visit all the blogs in this hop this week for more fun and insights too!
Winding Ways in red and white fabrics can quickly be made in EQ7, as there is a pre-existing block for this design.
March 24th - September 10th is the Make It! Challenge where you have plenty of time to make your project that you designed, or use a purchased pattern or even a free pattern. This challenge is all about making a red/white quilt project in 2014. Any size, any design that you make in 2014 can be entered in this challenge.
2) Fabrics of the Month: Every month quilters can download a free collection of digital fabrics (~30).
6 comments:
Thank you so much for great tip! A hug!
Thank you so much for great tip! A hug!
I love this! Especially the designing part of the challenge. Deadlines always give me a good incentive to work with so thanks for organizing this!
I wish I had learned how to use EQ. I purchased EQ6 and just weeks later versions 7 came out :-( I'm not even sure it is still on my computer anymore.
Thanks so much for the info about Stash now being available online. Previously I have bought the CDs, but now I won't have to!
I love having fabrics in EQ I would love to design more in it
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