DebraK

I'm so glad to see someone say this out loud ;-) I too, have Quilt Pro. I bought it on sale for $80, and found it very easy to use after going through its tutorial, step by step. I've no regrets buying this program. Very handy for figuring patterns out for yourself.

Onebyone

Copy and paste to where? I must be missing what you mean.

TeresaA

I am also from the IT realm and find when I "challenge" EQ, it doesn't deliver as well as it should. I wonder if people without heavy computer backgrounds tend not to get frustrated with what it SHOULD be able to do, because they don't realize that it should be able to do that, thus find it easy to use.

I am really proficient with Photoshop and would much rather use PS or Photoshop Elements for quilt design over EQ. Of course, you can't do yardage calcs and things like that in Photoshop, but it's fairly easy to set all of that up with Excel.

Sheri.a

Let me try to explain. My quilt is a New York Beauty with around 100 10" blocks. When I was testing colors, I would have 4 blocks with the same colors / design - 25 times. I couldn't figure out how to take 1 10" block, copy and pasting it in 4 different places on the quilt.

Nammie to 7

I bought the Dear Jane software to print out the patterns for paper piecing. I didn't use it for colors or anything else. Figured it was worth the price just to get the paper piecing patterns! Took me quite a while to get them all printed and ready to work on! There are wonderful tutorials on each block in the blog That Quilt.

Nammie to 7

I'm thinking that all you software people should get together and write a user friendly program that does all that EQ7 does! I would bet it would be wonderful as you all know how to program and you also quilt so you know what is needed.

Prism99

Sure! Contact me as soon as you have the financing arranged!

Auntie V

If I understand this right. All you need to do is put the 4 blocks in your sketch book. Once there go to the work on quilt feature and using the layer one area of your quilt layout place the 4 blocks that you are using into whatever place that you want them on the layout. If you need to turn the block in a different direction use the rotate block until it is turned the direction you want. If you have 75 blocks that are all the same you can place that block in all 100 places in the quilt then just place another block over the one that you want to be different.

eparys

Ok - I am going to throw my opinion in here as well. I too am from a IT type background (taught Advance Placement Comp Sci for 8 years). I bought a cheaper program (one of the Jenny Haskin programs) with very little flexibility and SO not intuitive. After a year - I finally broke down and purchased EQ6 and there was no going back. I have updated to EQ7 now for the convenience of having two computers active (unlike EQ6 - where you had only 3 activations no matter what - EQ7 allows for unlimited installations and you can manage which ones are active easily).

I use mine all the time. I do a $5 BOM at the LQS which requires templates - because I am cheap I just come home and draw it in EQ, print out the templates or the PPing and do the block. I play with designs, colors and layouts all the time. While there are a list of things I wish it could do - in a heart beat I would buy it again for all the things that it does do for me.

I did not find it difficult to learn to use - I might have even said it was straight forward for the basics. Granted some of the more advanced drawing and quilt designs are a bit more time consuming. There are some drawing techniques that to learn you have to walk through the tutorials a few times and to date I am still learning every day I use it. The custom quilt layout can be cumbersome at first and if you want to design hexagon shaped blocks it is neither easy or intuitive (imho). I expect that we all take the time to "learn" those techniques that we most want to use.

My only wish is that there were more online opportunities for advanced classes. However, our own Rhonda has so graciously shared her lessons with us

http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...a-t195158.html

It is well worth the time and effort to go through them.

I love my EQ and would not be without it. If you have the $$ and you want a good program I would highly recommend it. Also, see if you can find a dealer who sells it locally to you. Go in and ask to play with it - find out if they offer lessons. Granted, Quilt in a Day or even jhittlesewing.com (they will give a price over the phone) might be way cheaper but you may be more comfortable if the seller offers lessons and support locally.

luana

I am the newbie here. Last week I purchased EQ for my Mac. I can tell you, it is not as friendly as Mac software with draw features. Last week I saw an advertisement for a "must have" book on using EQ to design blocks. Really? Will I need a book to figure it out? I have watched the tutorials, and practiced each step, but it's not "happening". My plan B is it turn off Mac in my head, pretend I never saw a computer before, and dig into the program. Wish me luck.