Rhonda's Electric Quilt Class - Week 1 - Introduction
 

You can find the classes in Tutorials and also here in Topics Lists:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tags/electric+quilt.html

Welcome to the EQ Classes! For those who don’t know me I am Rhonda and I will be your guide today! LOL

I design quilt blocks using my EQ5 and I love love love it! I spend a lot of time on it and can lose many hours while I play among the colors and fabrics! It is soooo much fun! I hope to share this with you and look forward to getting to know more members.


All questions are welcome and there are never any dumb questions just questions you don’t know the answer to. So shout out if you have a problem or just plain don’t know what to do. That is what I am here for. If I don’t know the answer hopefully another member will know or I will search for the answer in the books. The ladies at the EQ company are extremely nice and helpful so if we need I can contact them and ask.

I hope to see some discussion so everyone can get comfortable with their programs.

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So open your program and here we go-------
When your window pops up you will see this:

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Type New in for the project name.
Then click on OK

If you would rather use a specific name that’s fine but for now I am using New so you don’t have to think about what to name this file. You can change it later.


Now we are in.
You will see this or your version of it if you are using EQ6 or EQ7.
They are reasonably similar.

Now we are going to talk about the tool bars.

When looking at the tool bars you can hover over them and the name of that tool should pop up.

The Versions 6 and 7 have advanced tool features and are slightly different from the 5 version but the functions are basically the same.
We won’t get into how to use them so much right now

On the last two or 3 pages of your manual you will find the tools listed. \
Some of them should be self explanatory as in New Project / Save etc.
The rest of them I’ll explain as we go along.
The best way to learn what they are and what they do is to use them.

The Sketchbook is your best friend. You save everything you want to keep in there. You can write notes to go along with your designs /you can delete things/ and add things /and keep all your fabrics in one place as well as any blocks you make etc.

If you can’t find the tool you need or don’t know what I am talking about just ask.

Okay Let’s start with making a simple quilt block.

You have your project open and you named it New.

So click on layout
you will see a window pop up with a layout box on the side that looks like the first picture below. All 3 versions are reasonably the same.

You can decide how many blocks you want horizontally and vertically and change it accordingly. Just backspace to get rid of what number is there and put your numbers in. You can change the size of your block if you want.

For our purposes please change the Number of blocks to 3 in both Horizontal and vertical.
The size of the block won’t matter right now.
And the sashing should be moved back to the left for 0 for now.
So you will have a quilt that looks like the second picture here.



Go up to the top tool bar and find the Worktable button.
Click on it.
Then click on work on block.
Then click on New - Easy Draw.

You should see the screen below: You may or may not see a grid in the block. It doesn’t matter right now either way.

Ok now click on the button that is a pencil drawing a straight line. It is called a line tool in all 3 versions.

Draw a line from one corner to the opposite corner.
This creates a Half Square Triangle or an HST.
Or you can draw a line from the opposite corners creating an x in the middle. Now you have a Triangle 4 patch.
Click on color and you should see the color window pop up.
Click on any colors you want to use.
Click on the block where you want to place the color in your block.
We will deal with how to add fabrics to the sketchbook later. For now you should have a default palette with fabrics in it.

For EQ5 click on the save to sketchbook or click on Block in the tool bar at the top and find save to sketchbook in the menu.
For EQ6 and EQ7 click on the sketchbook pic with the arrow pointing up. This will save it to the sketchbook for you.

Go up to the top tool bar
Click on Worktable
Click on Work on Quilt.
This should take you back to the quilt layout.
Make sure you are on Layer 1 now.

So to recap.
You should have a 9 patch quilt layout.
You should have one block saved in your sketchbook Block section.

Go to the right tool bar and
Find the Set Tool.
It is the fourth button from the top. You can hover over the buttons til you see the right one.

Click on the set tool.
You will see a pop up window with your quilt block in it.
If you don’t see your quilt block make sure the pop up is showing Blocks.

Now click on your quilt block
Click on the squares where you want to put your quilt block.



Once you have done that you can turn the block with the Rotate Tool.
In EQ5 and EQ6 it is the 6th tool down from the top. In EQ7 it is the 7th tool down from the top.
Click on the rotate tool
Click on the block in the quilt that you want to turn.

I turn them all and then go back and turn them all again to get a totally different look. You can turn them all sorts of ways to get lots of different looks.

So now…. We can play!!!

Click on the paintbrush
Choose colors from the palette
Click on the quilt to place the colors or change colors in your quilt.
Turn the blocks and see what designs you can get.
Change your number of blocks in the layout to 4 or 6 or 8 blocks and explore the possibilities.


Recap

Click on Worktable
Click on Work on Block
Work on your new block- draw and change colors etc
Save Block
Click on Worktable
Click on Work on Quilt

Click on Layout to change the number of blocks
Click on the Set tool to choose your Block
Click on the quilt to place the block where you want.
Continue to place blocks / change colors/ turn blocks
Remember to save your quilts from time to time so you can see what
all you made.

Have a good time exploring your opportunities!!

Thanks Rhonda! Are you going to show us how to use the second pencil function. How about the function with the wand that changes the colors of the fabric. I know this is more advance but I was just wondering. There is so much I would like to learn about EQ6 so that I can make use of it.

Thanks Rhonda

Thanks Rhonda

Hi Rhonda. I have asked Santa for EQ7 for Christmas. Will you be around for awhile? I'll try to keep following you here but I sure wish I had it now so that I can play as we go along.

EQ lessons
 

Rhonda, Thank you so much for doing this for all of us. this weeks lesson went so smoothly, was able to follow
along with no problems. Looking forward to the next lesson. Thank you.

Thanks so much. A lot of time went into this. I have already gotten this far, but am looking forward to learning something new.

Help! I have my HST colored, click on save in sketchbook button. It saves the block, but not the colors. Then when I click to place on quilt I have no colors! What am I doing wrong?

Thank you Rhonda.......I appreciate your EQ class!

Thank you so much! I am beginning to feel more comfortable with the program although I definitely have a long way to go!!

Whenever I try to put something in the first box, where it says type the name of your project it keeps telling me Not A Valid filename. I have EQ5 could someone please tell me what I am doing wrong.

Thanks
Verna2197

Thanks for lesson one. I really want to learn how to use this program.

Thank you Rhonda for this thread. I have had the EQ5 for a few years and have not learned how to use it. I've tried a few times but haven't had enough time at one sitting to get into it.
Some one asked how to bookmark this. At the top of the thread on the right where it says Threads Tools, click on that. It will have a subscribe to this thread. Pick your notification type and then under the Folder is bookmarks.
Under Threads Tools is also a printable version. When I tried to use that it gave a printable version but not the pictures with it. I ended up copying and pasting everything into a Word document and that worked.

I sent you a PM that I couldn't get my block that had color to appear in the 'set' window. Nevermind. After I closed the program and reopened it, I got the colored one. I have no idea why, but will play with it. Thanks so much for the class. Looking forward to the next one.

Thanks Rhonda. It really helps to have the colored pictures on it to follow along.

when you save to the sketchbook it will save it colorless. all you need to do is look for the arrows underneath that window. Click on the right arrow and it will show you the next block. It will be the colored one you saved. It saves several something like 5 in the same place. You just use the arrow to see all of them in that stack.

The sketchbook saves several blocks in one stack. After it saves the frame it then saves the colored ones. So you can always go back and choose to edit the one without color if you want to. Later on when we get into more complicated designs this will be important to remember.

When you get your EQ7 you will be ahead of the game and able to dive in and feel comfortable using it. You can print off these classes and then you will have them to follow.

Thanks Rhonda, I'll keep practicing until I get this part down really really good. And not try to do more until the next lesson.

Great tut! Things like getting the color to come across on the block is exactly the kind of problem I have, so I have already learned something. I can hardly wait for next week. Thank you for your time and your knowhow.

Yes we will cover as much of it as I know how to do and I will be going through the manuals and seeing what more I can learn to pass along. Anything I don't know we will just have to experiment til we understand it!!

Right now I know I will be covering the rest of the functions on the tools and how to scan fabric / how to look for blocks and add to them. How to add fabric from the manufacturers. Basically how to use the sketchbook and libraries.
I will show how to design using my shortcuts and how to put them into quilts. We will explore alot of stuff that will help you make quilts.

Thanks! I now have COLOR!!!!
:D

I love this EQ Class!!!
 

Rhonda, Thank you so much! I am enjoying playing with my new blocks in EQ6. This is so fun and easy to understand. wish I could be here at the right time but life is calling!!!!

Great! Another thing the sketchbook does is to save your colors automatically. When you are changing colors in your quilt it will save the differant colored blocks into your sketchbook automatically so if you need to change something back you can look for that color combination in the Block section in your sketchbook and you can click on that specific block to replace the one in your quilt. this is really nice if you play with a lot of differant color combos in your quilt and want to go back to one you did several changes ago. You don't have to change each and every little spot just change the block. Now when you get as many differant one in your Block section like I do it can be a challenge to find that one block among the crowd but I just click on where I think it is and go left til I have seen all the blocks in that stack and then go to the next stack and keep looking til I find it.

thank you so much,now I have hope,you were so easy to follow.
I have had my EQ5 ever since it came out.
d.swindle

I have had my EQ5 for quite awhile I have a few of the basics down but looking forward to learning more with the rest of you. Sure makes figuring this out more fun Thanks so much Rhonda

Make sure you are not using any periods or slash marks in your project name. Try just a simple one word name and see if it will work for you.

Thanks Rhonda I enjoyed your class

Thanks so much for preparing this. I'm hoping by replying to this I can find it again so I can bookmark it.

I have EQ5 and have not done much with it! I am going to play along with you and see what happens! Thanks Rhonda!

Rhonda

Thank you for your time and expertise in the tutorial on EQ 5,6,and 7. I just might get it yet. Can't wait til the next tut. Are they going to be weekly? Again, aBig Thank You for your time and knowledge. I have problems with vista and my embroidery software, also lost my internal DVD drive to vista. Today some of the tools I needed wouldn' stay on the screen, had to keep going back to get them. Hope it will work, when I use it again.

suzy