EQ7 - should I?
 

Ok guys, tell me about EQ7 and whether or not I should get it. DH said he would get it for me for Mother's Day, but I am trying to decide if I really want it (or rather, if I really want to spend $200 on it). I am debating asking him to just get me the [cheaper] Dear Jane software and book.

I don't do much designing of quilts on my own, but I suppose that could change if I had EQ7... What else is it handy for?

Is it easy to put blocks/units from commercial quilt patterns in, so that you can plan your fabrics?

Does it auto-magically make paper piecing templates for the blocks you create?

I started with Dear Jane and have to say I found it very labor intensive to learn and use. If you do decide to go with Dear Jane, You really can not design new blocks, you can change colors and add borders.

Some people have told me I should have started with EQ, but was a large expense.

First of all, buy it from quiltinaday and save a bundle.

I use it all the time and would not be without it. It does provide paper piecing sheets for your blocks. It's also easy to create blocks either from your imagination or by looking at blocks that you find in other quilts. It comes with great built-in lessons. However... you have to be willing to learn something new, and not be afraid of using a computer.

I know the two are entirely different software. Dear Jane is just meant to help you design and make a specific quilt with specific blocks; while EQ7 is meant for designing whatever you want. I was just thinking that if I decided EQ7 wasn't worthwhile for me, Dear Jane would be an excellent alternative because I really intrigued by that quilt. Although I suspect it could take me years to finish the quilt since I would be making the blocks along side other projects. I don't think I have the attention span to make that thing all at once!

I am am software engineer, so the learning/using software is no big deal. Thanks for the quiltinaday tip! That will save $46! That is excellent considering I think I will purchase the PC version and then get the $25 "migration" so I can use it on both my Mac & PC. (I prefer Mac, but my Pfaff software is only for PC... so I would need to use it with PC sometimes). And I was thinking of getting the Judy Martin Star Power add on too.

romille, you might want to check the license on EQ7, I don't think you can load it on two computers without deleting from the one, but I could be wrong.

You can install it on any number of computers, but only two can have the license active at one time. It's easy enough to inactivate the license on one computer in order to activate it on another, if you really need to use more than 2 computers with the software.

I second this! I have EQ7 on my "big" PC upstairs and also on my downstairs laptop; I've replaced both of those machines since I bought EQ7 and had no trouble moving my licenses from my old machines to the new ones. I don't remember exactly what I did, but I do remember it was easier than I thought it would be.

I actually have a theory that folks who use computers and software a lot have a harder time with EQ7 than someone who is more of a novice. It's not intuitively built like most software is and doesn't do what you might expect it to do, or at least not in the way you'd expect it to do it. I'm a programmer and I have found the learning curve to be pretty steep! There are still a lot of things I revert back to graph paper for because I can't figure it out in EQ7, BUT I love having the software and some day I'll really knuckle down and figure out how to do those things. There are a lot of tutorials for it that I haven't had any trouble following.

Interesting observation. I am a retired software engineer (it seems many of us have been attracted to quilting) and for years I claimed that I was a software developer, not a software user, because I didn't like spending the time to learn to use a system designed by someone else. Eventually I had to give up on writing my own applications for everything. I agree that EQ7 doesn't follow today's standard Windows interface, but once I started using it I didn't find it particularly difficult. I started with EQ6, but then I bought the DJ software, which is based on EQ5, and I found that the interface was drastically changed and improved with EQ6. I think many people who complain about the user interface are still using 5.