This month we’ll be learning some options for making quick changes to quilts that may inspire new designs.

  1. Open EQ8 and click Design a quilt from scratch
  2. Click the LAYOUT tab
  3. Click Horizontal
  4. Under NUMBER OF BLOCKS enter
    Horizontal: 6
    Vertical: 6
  5. Click the DESIGN tab
  6. Click Block Tools
  7. Click Open Library
  8. Under 01 Classic Pieced click Classics
  9. Click the first block, Log Cabin
  10. Click Add to Sketchbook
  11. Click Close
  12. Click the Set Block tool
  13. Click on the Log Cabin block
  14. Hold down the ctrl/cmd key on your keyboard and click on a space on the quilt.
  15. Click the Symmetry tool
  16. Click on the quilt to see 16 different layouts!
  17. Click Add to Project Sketchbook  for any of the layouts you’d like to save. If you haven’t named your project yet, EQ8 will prompt you to do so. (To be saved, your item needs to be in the Sketchbook AND your project needs to be named. Here is more information.)
  18. Click the Fabric Tools
  19. Click the Randomize tool
  20. Under MODIFY COLOR choose Randomize
  21. Click on the quilt. With each quilt you will see a different color variation.
  22. Click Add to Project Sketchbook  for any of the colorings  you’d like to save. It may not be something you want to use as is but it can be a starting off point.
  23. Click Open Library We’re going to add more fabrics. I chose a few different greens and purples, for example, 29 Green, 31  Yellow-Green, 18 Violet, 19 Purple etc. But you choose colors that are in your quilt.
  24. Click Select All Fabrics
  25. Click Add to Sketchbook
    You may get a message saying that some fabrics are already in the Sketchbook. That’s fine, just click OK.
  26. Click Close
  27. Select Map to fabrics and click on the quilt.
    This will replace each color with the closest fabric in the current palette. This is why we added lots of different fabrics in the range of the colors of your quilt. So that there would be lots of fabric options to for Map to fabrics choose from.
  28. Use Swap Color to change any fabrics you’re not happy with.
  29. Click Block Tools
  30. Click Symmetry to play with the layout again with the new color scheme and fabrics.
  31. Click Fabric Tools and use the Paintbrush tool to make any other changes you would like.
    In the example alternating blocks were recolored in a slightly different fabrics by holding down the the alt/option key on the keyboard.
  32. Click Add to Project Sketchbook  when you are finished. The Symmetry tool will work with any block that is asymmetrical. Have fun playing with different blocks and different color schemes! Here are a few more examples of a asymmetrical block with the Symmetry Tool, Randomize Colors, Map to Fabrics and with small changes added.

    Hour Glass Block


    5 Blade Dresden Flower Fan Block

    Potted Star Flower Block

If you want to post images of the quilts you’ve designed from this lesson, here is how to export the images.

To post your image click to comment on this post. Fill in your info and then click Browse.Go to: Documents\My EQ8\Images

I can’t wait to see what you’ve done! I hope you enjoyed the lesson! If you have questions about the lesson feel free to post them below. If you have questions about something else EQ related, please contact techsupport@electricquilt.com. If you have suggestions for new Design & Discover lessons feel free to comment below or email Heidi@electricquilt.com