One more thing... you say that you have never used quilting software before. How about other types of software? Are you comfortable doing things with a computer? If not, buying EQx is not going to change that. I use EQ for almost every quilt, usually to test out color combinations, borders, block combinations, etc. I would not be without it. But I have been using computers daily since I was 23, and that's a long (won't say *how* long) time before personal computers even came on the scene. If you aren't comfortable using a computer, I wouldn't advise you to buy EQ, because you will just get frustrated (as you would with any other software).