Learning EQ

Electric Quilt lets us learn about design without a huge expense after buying the program, but I know a lot of people have Electric Quilt but only use it to work out how much fabric they need to buy for a particular project … something which could be done with a pencil and paper.

Ok, Electric Quilt has just arrived!

Load it, register and activate it, and let’s get going!

If you are new to EQ, there are instructions for just about anything you can think of in the manual, there is a Help button, there are videos to watch so I am not going to tell you exactly what button to hit and when! If you have had EQ for sometime you should know that. When you get to something you don’t know how to do, look it up in the book. That’s what it is for, and it will answer your dumb questions as many times as you like, and if you read slowly it will tell you what to do more slowly.

When all else fails, send an email to Tech Support … Penny or one of the crew will reply just like a real person! Because that is what they are … and friendly and knowledgable too!

If you don’t know what a tool does, try it! It won’t break, the program won’t die, though if you have a slow computer it may freeze up everything. If that happens, turn off the computer, have a coffee or walk around the garden, or both, then turn it back on again. When you start EQ again it will ask you if you want to reopen the project you were working on when things went bad. Everything you saved will still be there!

Open a new quilt project, call it My First EQ7 Project.

Open the block library and browse. Quickly, there are lots of blocks to look through!

Click on the ones which catch your eye, save them to Sketchbook.

When you have had a quick look, start work on a quilt. Pick a block by clicking on it, hold down Control and click somewhere in the quilt top.

Wow!

Save it in the Sketchbook.

Try another block.

Save it in the Sketchbook.

And another one.

Now, pick a different block and hold down Alt key while you click on the quilt top. Now you have two blocks alternating.

Save it in the Sketchbook.

If you don’t hold down Control or Alt keys you can place the blocks exactly where you want them in the quilt.

Save it in the Sketchbook.

You will be saving lots of stuff you won’t want to keep but that’s OK, you can read about how to get rid of it later.

When you get sick of playing with the blocks in the gaudy colour combinations as they come from the it is time to take a break, make a coffee and read where the manual tells you haw to add colour from the Default Fabrics.

When you are ready, you can start playing with fabric!

Save often, so if you change something that you liked and want it back you will be able to find the version you like in the Sketchbook and work from that again.

Once you have mastered some of the basics start a new project file and select blocks a little more carefully, choose some fabric

Don’t make the first quilt you like … leave it until tomorrow … and you will probably see ways to improve it. Rarely are the best designs created in a day. (Especially when you are also learning to use a new computer program!) Leave it another day you will see even more improvements you can make.

Most of all, allow time to play with design, then more time to play with colour. Cutting into fabric is necessary to learn the techniques of putting a quilt together, but can be an expensive way to learn about design and colour.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Here’s a link to a tutorial

Designing paper piecing patterns in EQ7 – tutorial

from

Shape Moth

Here is Shape Moth writing about her first experience with electric Quilt 7

New and proud owner of Electric Quilt 7

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx

Scanning Fabric

for use in your projects

From the blog,

Three Ducks in a Roof