Reeze Hanson of Morning Glory Designs is partnering with me on lessons focused on converting Electric Quilt designs into formal patterns.  Our first collaborated lesson appeared this last week in the Tech Know Quilters Modern Quilts session.  More will be added during future months.   

Reeze is a talented pattern designer specializing in designs that incorporate both pieced and applique components.  I know you will want to hear her story.

​EQ is the reason I became a designer.  Hi, I am Reeze Hanson and my design career started because I needed help drawing blocks and arranging them in quilts. 

When I was learning to quilt I joined several online quilt groups and we participated in dozens of block exchanges.  Before long, my sewing room was spilling over with bags of swap blocks and I needed a way to turn them into quilts.  A friend told me about EQ4, I got a copy and taught myself to use it.  I designed settings for all the blocks I received, and then designed settings for others in the group.  They liked my ideas and wanted instructions, so I started writing patterns!

I started teaching with EQ5.  It was the first Windows version of EQ and was vastly improved from the earlier DOS versions.  I offered classes at my local quilt shop and soon began teaching all over the midwest. 
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Then, my local quilt shop challenged me to come up with some table runner patterns they could sell and kit, and that was the start of my professional career.  I designed 12 table runner patterns featuring one-patch centers, and applique borders.  I called them Charming Botanicals as a play on words.
Here is the EQ image of one of the first of these table runners.  This the September Asters and Morning Glories runner.  I designed the linked diamond background to look like a trellis and wanted the flowers to be wound in the trellis. I made this flower to look like an aster.

It wasn’t exactly what I wanted.   I kept researching photos of morning glories.  I finally found an image I liked in an old embroidery pattern.  This image had the flower shape I wanted, the leaves, buds, and tendrils.

It was just the look I wanted with the two flowers mixed together.  I drew each flower, leaf, vine segment, bud and tendril separately, and composed the completed vine on the quilt worktable.  That way I could manipulate the placement, rotation and size of each of the elements of the vine.

Enjoy some of the quilts created this week by the talented Tech Know Quilters members.

Join the wait list for the next open enrollment period of Tech Know Quilters.

Last week I asked you how you would draft a Lady of the Lake quilt and presented a quiz to assist you in analyzing this quilt. If you missed the post (and the quilt), you can stillparticipate here.
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Many of you not only completed the quiz, but also shared photos of your designed quilt on social media.  Here were a number of the designs that were shared.

When I completed my rendition, I used a horizontal layout with 15 inch blocks.  So the quilt only had one pieced block to draft.  A number of people noted that they did an on point layout with sashing and cornerstones (comprised of the half and quarter square triangle units), with the large half square triangle unit being the block.  Both are correct ways to draft the quilt.

If you would like to learn how to draft the block and the quilt using my method, check out the following video.

Are you just getting started with Electric Quilt 8 and need some help? 

Shoot for the Stars is designed to get you started with Electric Quilt 8 through training delivered straight to your inbox.  This series includes 14 short (ie. 5-10 minute) videos delivered over the course of a month allowing you to learn the basics of this complex program in bite size increments.

​The class is currently on sale for $25 (regular $35).  Join now.

The Tech Know Quilters EQ8 Membership Studio participants  had a very productive week.  In addition to the quilts shown here, many also participated in a Gee's Bend Challenge.  I am saving those quilts for a special blog post in early August.

Class is now available for stand-alone purchase.

The Modern Quilt Guild notes that Modern quilts are primarily functional and inspired by modern design. Modern quilters work in different styles and define modern quilting in different ways, but several characteristics often appear which may help identify a modern quilt. These include, but are not limited to: the use of bold colors and prints, high contrast and graphic areas of solid color, improvisational piecing, minimalism, expansive negative space, and alternate grid work. "Modern traditionalism" or the updating of classic quilt designs is also often seen in modern quilting.

In this class you will explore creating modern quilts using Electric Quilt 8.

​All of this will be presented in 10 Easy Peasy video tutorials of 5-10 minutes. 

​A video tutorial plus detailed step by step instructions will be sent to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

​Purchase stand alone class for only $50.  (Note the material is the same as presented in the Tech Know Quilters Membership studio.)

It has been a while since I have shared a challenge with my blog readers.  As I was "researching" quilts on Pinterest this week I found this circa 1880  Lady of the Lake Antique quilt.  The quilt is current for sale on Ebay.  The description of the quilt included its size of 83 x 65 -- but not much else.

How would you approach drafting this quilt in Electric Quilt?
Take the quiz below to see my suggested questions and answers.