Talk about a testament to the EQ6 manual! Barbara Hilson wrote to us telling her triumphant story of upgrading to EQ6 and taking the time to learn about WHAT she could do with the program and HOW. She took the time to complete lessons in her manual and gave a seven year old quilt design a fresh spin based on what she had learned.

Below is her journey and photos of her finished quilt.

“I bought the fabric in December, 2002 (yes a long time ago) to make a rose quilt for my sister who loves roses. Her name is Rosalee. It was going to be a simple nine patch with embroidered roses between the nine patches. Well – 7 years and 4 months later I knew that was not what it was going to be. I had upgraded EQ5 to EQ6 in January or February of this year and decided to design it in the program. I sat down and did all the tutorials in the book that comes with the program. I started designing the quilt as soon as I finished the tutorials. I love the fact you can download all the fabrics but my fabric was over 5 years old. So the best thing for me to do would be to scan it in. Using the book and the tutorials online I scanned in my fabric, saved to a file. Next I did my embroideries. I had 15 done – wanting only 12. I let my sister decide which ones she wanted. I then scanned those in and started the design. I decided to draw some blocks. I had made the Yellow Brick Road Quilt several times – so it was time for me to put into practice what I had learned in the tutorial. I then drew 3 of the 4 blocks that are used in that quilt. Then I started placing blocks, rearranging many times. There were 14 different versions in my sketchbook before I settled on one. I wanted the focus on the embroidery but I also wanted the beautiful fabric I had chosen to be on display also. I also did all the quilting.

We are so proud of Barbara’s quilt and for investing the time to learn. We encourage users to investigate EQ6 features as much as possible and to expand their design skills. If the manual isn’t enough for you we offer four EQ6 Companion books to help you challenge yourself in becoming a master EQ6er!

EQ6 Block Book
EQ6 Simplified
EQ6 Pieced Drawing
EQ6 Appliqué Drawing