Software- quilting & embroidery
 

I was browsing through software options and looking for opinions on both embroidery and quilting. I looked through this board and didn’t see anything too recent.

Quilting:
I see EQ 7 and 8 are popular choices for the PC. I also see there’s apps out there for your phone that will keep track of stash colors etc. The one I saw was Quiltography. I think this would be really handy while shopping for colors and patterns. It looks like you can snap a pic at the store and you’d be able to see what it would look like in your design.

Embroidery:
Bernina is way too expensive for me to think about. I could never spend that much on software. I tried their free version for a week and liked it a lot. Is there any other software that’s affordable with similar options? My machine supports the EXP format.

Thanks!!

I have 5 D software, bought it when I bought my original embroidery machine. Not happy with it. I have been looking at other software and have been quite taken with Embrilliance. Can purchase in modules. As your digitizing progresses you can add modules. Interested to see what others have to say.

I'd like to see what others have to say as well, particularly with respect to machine embroidery. I have the 5D Quilt Design module, and it has some embroidery functions too, but I've not learnt how to use them, somehow it doesn't seem too intuitive. I can manipulate quilting designs with it a bit.

I have 5D Quilt DesignCreator. Am working to create a design the will fit on the blocks I pieced for a quilt. If and when I'm finished with the design, I'll post a photo. Am enjoying trying different things.

I have Embrillance and find it really easy to learn, the website has lots of tutorials. It has different modules you can buy depending on your needs. If you just want to do basic editing all you need is Essentials, also nice to have is Thumbnailer, it lets you see all your embroidery designs. There is a sale right now so check it out.

I purchased Corel Drawings Digitizing Software years ago and I have found it worth every penny. I was very expensive and worth every penny since it supports ever format and I can convert one design format to another as well as develop my own digitized designs. I have done hundreds of new designs over the last 10 years and resized thousands! I can work on a design that is a photo and turn it into a natural looking embroidery design perfect for my machine. For quilting I am not that well versed with EQ but did use and still use from time to time Quilt Pro. Most of my designs now I do on graph paper or in my brain.

I don't have any quilting design software except graph paper and a pencil.
I'm not familiar with the embroidery software out there except for My Editor. It's a free download, does more than I need and will work with all formats.

I have been using EQ7 now EQ8 casually for about 5 years. I find it very useful even though I'm not really a quilt designer. I have used it to determine size of quilt when modifying a pattern, manage the colors in a quilt to make certain the same or similar fabric don't end up right next to each other, print out foundation paper or patterns, and on and on. I purchased the EQ8 lesson book and found that to be very very helpful.

What version of Corel did you buy? I just saw that Bernina 8.0 does photos and I’m thinking would make a nice first Christmas gift. However, it’s 2,500 —- yikes!!

Anyone familiar with Sewart?

Mazo - This is the first I've heard of SewArt so had to have a look. It seems to be a good, inexpensive program, so I've downloaded the trial, but am doubtful that it will do as much as the more professional programs.
At the moment I have Generations which I purchased 2nd hand about 15 yrs ago, and last year bought Hatch ($1200).
I also have 4D Quilt Designer which is fabulous for quilting, but although it will convert designs to embroidery designs am not sure they won't need some editing to some extent before stitching out.