EQ 7 & EQ6: Part II - Designing a Quilt

(This tutorial was originally written after the release of EQ6, however it can be applied to EQ7 since this newest version of The Electric Quilt Company's quilt design software is built upon EQ6. The tutorial first appeared on the Three Ducks 'Home' website.)

I am ready to begin designing my quilt now that I have constructed its main block. To start, I clicked on my EQ6 desktop icon, read and closed the 'Tip of the Day,' clicked the 'Open an existing project' tab on the project helper and clicked on my 'West Coast Blues' project and clicked 'OK.' What immediately appears next is my project sketchbook above. Every project that you start in EQ6 will have its own sketchbook that will hold your block designs, quilt layouts, fabric choices, etc for that particular project. The buttons on the left are the different sections in the sketchbook with the bottom three being new to EQ6. The programme now has a large library of embroidery images from Cactus Patch, Pfaff and Viking. These are only images though and you still must purchase the patterns from the manufacturers. With the 'Photo' section, EQ is addressing the popularity of using photo images in quilts. You can now import your photos and store them in your sketchbook or use a small selection of photos in EQ6's library. The 'Thread' section will hold your colour choice of embroidery and quilting threads that you choose from the thread library. All the major thread manufacturers and their most popular lines are available.

My sketchbook 'Quilts' section is empty but I am now going to change that so I will close my sketchbook and EQ6 will immediately present a worktable to me.

EQ6 will present different worktables depending on what you last worked on. In my case, it has presented me with a basic Horizontal quilt layout.

It just so happens that is exactly the layout I will need. However, I must check the block size so I click on the 'Layout' tab and the layout palette at left appears. This quilt will be a 4x4 block layout and the blocks will be 9"x 9" and there is no sashing so I don't need to make any changes.

I am now going to add borders and click on the border tab. My quilt will have four borders with the forth representing the half inch binding I plan to add. You will notice in the image to the right there is an information bar above the quilt that tells me what layer I am working on.

There are actually five layers to the quilt worktable and you can only perform certain functions on each layer. EQ6 is behaving like any other graphics program in this regard. I have minimized the worktable for this tutorial so you can't see all the layer tabs but they are there.

Here is the border palette that appears when you click on the border tab. This is the tool you use to create all the borders you plan to add to your quilt. It is great fun to watch the borders appear but EQ6 lets you know if you are getting carried away and your quilt is approaching the size of a football field or soccer pitch by giving you the quilt size as you add each border.

Two of my borders are simple long horizontal borders but the second border is all blocks and you can see how I have created that border on the left. I first chose 'Blocks' from the drop down list where it says 'Select a border style.' I then set the size and how many of those blocks were needed in the each of the horizontal and vertical sections. There are almost two dozen border styles to choose from. You can also take advantage of the new 'Auto Borders' tool and let EQ6 do the work for you.

My borders are done and now I am ready to add my block. I must be on 'Layer 1' to do this and so I click its tab and the majority of worktable tools on the right toolbar are activated. I need the 'Set block' tool and click on it and my block palette appears. I click on my block and then click a blank quilt square and the block appears. The top image shows all the squares filled and now it is time to add some order and so I click on the 'Rotate block' tool and get to work. The bottom image shows my quilt design. Well, that was easy!

On the left is the block palette that appeared when I clicked on the 'Set Block' tool. Every block you put into your sketchbook will appear on the palette. You will recognize the first block from the previous tour; but what are those other blocks? Well, when I was making my quilt I ran out of border fabric and had to be creative and added eight blocks in the outer border corners in another fabric. Hmmm, how to do this in EQ6? Well, I remembered from either an EQ5 book or from a forum question that this could be accomplished by designing a block to fit in the border and that is what I did. Those two other blocks you see represent the vertical and horizontal blocks that will go into the outer long horizontal border. You can see the result below.

I have just completed 'colouring' my quilt in the above image which is why the 'Paintbrush' tool on the right toolbar is depressed. When I clicked that tool, my fabric palette appeared holding all the fabrics I added to my sketchbook from the fabric libraries. You can now see those eight extra blocks in the outer border that had me scratching my head. I am very pleased with my EQ6 design. It looks exactly like the wall hanging I made a few years back even though those fabrics are no longer available. Now, you know why I called my quilt 'West Coast Blues!' I am going to permanently give the quilt this name by heading back to the 'Quilts' section of my project sketchbook and clicking on 'Notecard.'

On the Notecard, I can name the quilt, who designed it and when and other details such as fabrics used, snap points and grid size; the choice is up to me. I can also do Notecards for any blocks in the sketchbook.

I can now print out an image of my quilt or discover how much fabric is needed to make by quilt. To do so, I click on the print icon and those options are presented in the drop down list. Those are the only two options available when on the quilt worktable.

I want to see the fabric yardage and choose that option. The box to the right appears and I pick my fabric width and seam allowance. To preview the results, I click on that button.

EQ6 "estimates" fabric yardage. It is close but it is not exact. Your know-ledge will play a role when viewing the details. I have zoomed in on the preview and you can see how EQ6 presents the quilt's fabric, number of patches and fabric amount needed. The EQ6 manual offers much more information on how to use this option.

'West Coast Blues' is my first completed project using EQ6 but it is a simple design and only scratches the surface of what can be done with the software. At the time I am writing this, I know books are being written by past EQ authors that will show you how to fully take advantage of all that the programme has to offer. They will enhance the manual that comes with the software.

Once again, The Electric Quilt Company has produced an excellent quilt design software program. They have researched quilters' needs and have tried to meet them all. And as usual, their support for this program is second to none. Well, done EQ!