Originally Posted by glenda5253
I am amazed that so many of you design your own quilts. I thought unless you were a designer for fabric company everyone just used patterns they found. What exactly is EQ and how does it work? Do you start with a basic pattern like churn dash, nine patch, etc. and go from there? I know I am showing how green I am about quilting but hope you don't mind. :?: :?: :?:
Electric Quilt is a wonderful program that lets you create your own blocks, quilts, etc. From designing your own blocks... putting in your own fabrics, and even putting your quilting stencil in the color of thread you want to use, so you can get an idea of what your completed quilt will look like, before ever taking a rotary cutter to fabric. It has hundreds of blocks already in the program, with other add on programs from people like Karen Stone (New York beauty type blocks), Judy Martin (Stars) and many others. You can take a block to the worktable, and add or delete lines and alter them in almost any way you can image.. as long as you can still sew the block it can be done in the program.
If you do machine embroidery, you can put a representation of your embrodiery design on your quilt, so you can see what it would look like. You could design your own applique designs. If you do memory quilts, you can put your pictures on your virtual quilt to see how everything will look before you ever print out your pictures on fabric, so you dont' waste fabric trying to get the "right size".
Do you want to see what your blocks would look like on point?? Click..Click and you have an on point layout. Want to see how the quilt will look with multiple borders?? Click Click.. presto.. more borders. What about if you want to add sashing.. how would that look.. click click... cool!!!! Need to create a quilt a specific size??? Just alter the size of the blocks, border, sashing.. and you can control the finished size of the quilt.
The one thing the program DOES NOT DO... and this is important for new quilters... it does NOT tell you how to sew it all together. You won't get step by step instructions on how to cut your fabric, how to sew it all back together, or how to finish your quilt. So you do need some basic understanding of how to construct a quilt. BUT.. you CAN print out foundation papers for paper piecing blocks, Rotary cutting diagrams that show how wide to cut strips and then what size to cut into subsets. Templates for applique, and as long as you colored in your quilt with the correct colors you are going to use, it will even give you estimates on how much of each fabric you will need to make your quilt. As well as print out a picture of your completed quilt, so you have a picture to refer to or keep for your records.
Hope this explains a little bit about what the program can do. If you have any more questions.. don't hesitate to ask.. I'm sure someone here will be able to answer them.