EQ7--I scanned my fabrics in!
 

I'm designing a wall-hanging for over the couch and need to stay within certain measurements in both directions, so I'm using EQ7 to help. It was hard to pick a block when I had no idea how the fabric would look, so I tossed a folded yardage on the scanner and waited to see what would happen. After a check in at "Help" I got the answers I needed and scanned in all six possibilities! Holy cow--what fun! This opens a whole new reason for use EQ7 for me! Happy sigh.

Great that it worked so well for you. Keep us posted on whether you feel it is worth the effort to scan in your own fabrics vs. using the ones already available. I haven't bothered to scan any of mine yet, partly from laziness, but I do rely on EQ for so much.

I'm so glad you found how to do that. Isn't it just awesome?! Our own Rhonda is doing weekly tutorials on EQ and this link takes you to her tut on scanning http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...c-t170104.html
If you want more, check in at tutorials each Monday.

I imported the images from the fabric manufacturer into EQ6. Two of the fabics had large motifs that I was going to fussy cut. But it did make a big difference (to me, at least) to see my actual fabrics in the design. I think it depends on the scale of the fabric design. I think larger scale would be more important to see in EQ.

If you can find the fabric anywhere online, it's easier to just just import the image to EQ. Most of the fabric lines have free EQ files ready to put in the library. EQ website has free fabric sets to download every month and the back years are still there. All of Connecting Threads fabric have free EQ files. I seldom have to scan any fabric unless it's years old, I always find a thumbnail of it online.

Congratulations! Job well done! Isn't EQ awesome?

I have done both ways - scanning and using a thumbnail. I find the thumbnails often work better because you can avoid the moire pattern that sometimes appears with scanning.

Wow! I'm learning a lot! Thanks for the information!