Electric Quilt Software EQ7
It’s like having a teacher right there with you! Learn to use the software by watching the 10 videos targeted for beginners. Then go through the 22 printable, full-color PDF lessons for comprehensive, step-by-step lessons that show you how to design quilts, draw blocks, work with images, and print patterns.
Design Quilts
Quilts can be as simple, or as complex-looking as you like. EQ7 can help whether you want to make a horizontal quilt with plain squares, or an intricate custom quilt with blocks of all different sizes. Choose from any of our 10 automatic layouts, over 540 pre-designed layouts by size & by style, popular quick-quilts, or draw your own layout. The possibilities are endless.
Borders & Sashing
Adding borders is now the fun part of designing a quilt! Choose from over 290 pre-designed Auto Borders, or create your own. Have as many borders as you like. You pick the width — EQ7 does the math, fitting borders perfectly for you. Central Medallions only take a few clicks to design.
Working with Images
Using your own fabric scans has never been easier! Easily import your fabric and see it in your design! Plus, EQ7 has over 45 different image effects, including artistic, noise, blur and many more. Filters allow you to sharpen, unsharpen, or detect the edges of your image. Square and Circular symmetries take portions of your image and repeat them according to your choices.
Drawing Blocks
Draw beautiful, original blocks and stencils, or let EQ7 create new blocks for you. The EasyDraw drawing board works like a pencil and paper. Draw straight lines and arcs and subdivide as needed. The Pieced PatchDraw drawing board has click-and-snap grids, designed to simplify drawing complex blocks like New York Beauty, Wheel, Kaleidoscope, and Eight-Point Star blocks.
Import and trace photos to create new blocks. Appliqué blocks and quilting stencils can be drawn using pull-out shapes like hearts, leaves, tear-drops, circles, squares, and more. The Freehand tool lets you draw freely, just as you would doodle on paper. Vines and leaves are easy with the Brush Stroke and Swath tools. Just decide whether you want a plain vine or one filled with flying geese or diamonds.
What’s included?
- 2 reusable activations
- 22 printable, full-color PDF lessons
- Fully-illustrated, downloadable User Manual PDF
- 5,000 copyright-free block patterns
- 5,000 scanned fabrics
- 4,200 non-digitizable embroideries
- 540 ready-made quilt layouts
- 10 help videos targeted for beginners
- 67 “How Do I?” topics
- Tools for working with quilts, blocks, and images
- Importing features for scanned fabric
- Exporting features for print-quality images
Coloring Quilts and Blocks
Over 5000 scanned fabrics are included. Scan your own fabrics, then crop and “tweak” them right in EQ7. Save them and “notecard” them in your own My Library to use and re-use. EQ7 scales the fabrics for you — no matter what size your quilt or block — so what you see in EQ7 is what you’ll get in your finished quilt.
Color tools let you play “what if” before you cut fabric. You can even let the computer choose colors for you with the Random Recolor tool. Rotate your fabric at any angle you choose, using the Rotate Fabric tool to create special effects with even the simplest stripes.
Block Patterns
EQ7 includes over 5,000 copyright-free blocks. Use these blocks, change them a bit, or design your own. Use and re-use blocks as patterns or quilting stencils. Choose any size. Or use EQ7’s new Serendipity tools to magically turn any block into a new original block.
Using Quilting Stencils
Audition quilting designs on your quilt to truly see your design at its fullest. Design your own quilting designs on the Block worktable, or edit designs from the library. Use the Set Thread tool to add color to your quilting!
Printing Patterns
Print patterns and yardage estimates! Print Templates, Foundation Patterns, and Rotary Cutting Charts in any size. EQ7 remembers the size on the quilt, and the block’s orientation too–perfect for skewed blocks. Print yardage estimates for the whole quilt at once with 2 clicks.
Print multiple photos onto one sheet of fabric. Just drag and drop your photos on the new Photo Layout page.
Exporting
Create professional images of your blocks and quilts to use in class hand-outs. Export full-color images or outline drawings of your quilt or blocks to use as Web images, guild newsletters, magazine or book illustrations, pattern covers or just to show off. You choose the file type (jpg, gif, tif, png or bmp) and resolution, from 75 to 600 dpi.