EQ8 Lessons with Yvonne

The month of May makes me think of Spring flowers and Mother’s Day.  There are some wonderful applique designs built into EQ8 that host a variety of flower shapes in one applique block.  This one block can look so totally different depending on the fabric choices used.  You can try out different fabrics in your designs to see what gives the best overall feel for the quilt block before you even begin shopping for the fabrics or before you begin cutting the fabrics already in your stash. Launch your EQ8 program and name the project May Flowers. Click on the OK at the bottom of the project helper box. At the top of the screen, click on LIBRARIES>Block Library. In the block libraries box, click on the word ‘search>by notecard’. In the search block notecard box, type in the word ‘mother’ and then click on the ‘search at the bottom of

The newest software release from Electric Quilt is here!  Block Base+ is the newest software that is a companion to the Block Base book.  Some of you may have the original Block Base CD that was released several years ago, but the new updated Block Base+ is fantastic.  It is so versatile with all the things you can do with it. The greatest new feature for the Block Base + program is that you can select a block and set the size you want and then export it as a .svg file.  This is very exciting because of all the cutting machines on the market today.  You can send your .svg file to your cutting machine and cut all the pieces needed for your block construction.  This saves a lot of time.  We can not save an image as a .svg file in EQ8, so having the ability to do

2020 was a challenging year.  Start 2021 by treating yourself.  I turn to my sewing room for inspiration and it provides me with a calming retreat area in my own home.  It starts with my favorite inspiration tool–EQ8.  Browsing the huge built-in libraries for blocks and layouts gives me just the right space to start experimenting with new design ideas I had not tried before. I like to start my process by looking through the block library in EQ8.  I also have many add-on libraries that the EQ company has provided us with to add to the already massive library of blocks in the program.  I simply scroll through the library and look at the blocks and choose one that I have not tried before. Open your EQ8 program    and start a new project called ‘Treat Yourself in 2021′. I can look at the blocks by category or by construction method. 

My birthday is in November.  The birthstone for that month is Topaz.  This is a yellow/orange color.  I don’t like that color at all.  But, as a challenge to myself, I will make a monochromatic block using that color.  I find it is good to challenge myself in all kinds of ways as this is when I grow the most and learn all kinds of discoveries. I once made a quilt in browns and oranges that I don’t care for either, but it is now one of my favorite quilts.  Surprise! Open your EQ8 and name your project ‘birthstone designs’. Click on the block worktable icon on the upper right side of the screen. Click on NEW BLOCK>Pieced>Easy Draw. Set the block size to be an 8 x 8-inch block with 24 snaps horizontal and vertical. I don’t care for the colors I am using so I will create areas

Welcome to  DESIGN AND SEW ALONG 3- LESSON SIX Lessons with Yvonne.  I hope you have enjoyed the first five lessons of this series.  In this final lesson, we will work with the quilt layout worktable to bring our lesson block designs together to create quilt design options. The name of this class is DESIGN AND SEW ALONG.  I do hope you are stitching some of the designs we have created in our EQ8 program.  I would love to see some of the designs that are sewn. Remember to watch the video at the end of the blog to start with to familiarize yourself with the steps we will be taking during these class written lessons.  A picture is worth a thousand words and visual learning is helpful for any of the classes. Remember to save an image of your favorite quilt from this class to post to the EQ blog page in the comment

Welcome to  DESIGN AND SEW ALONG 3- LESSON Five Lessons with Yvonne.  I hope you have enjoyed the first four lessons of this series.  In this lesson, we will explore the Summer months and the holidays of July 4 (USA) July 1 (Canada).    Each set of lessons explores some different tools to use to create the 16-inch blocks we determined to be the size of all the blocks in our continuing lessons. The name of this class is DESIGN AND SEW ALONG.  I do hope you are sewing some of the designs we have created in our EQ8 program.  I would love to see some of the designs that are sewn. Remember to watch the video at the end of the blog to start with to familiarize yourself with the steps we will be taking during these class written lessons.  A picture is worth a thousand words and visual learning is helpful for

Welcome to  DESIGN AND SEW ALONG 3- LESSON FOUR Lessons with Yvonne.  I hope you have enjoyed the first three lessons of this series. In this lesson, we will be looking ahead to Springtime.  During Spring we have the holiday of Easter.  You may choose to not celebrate the holiday, celebrate as a religious holiday, or celebrate in the secular retail promotion of the holiday.  The choice will be yours. Remember to watch the video at the end of the blog to start with to familiarize yourself with the steps we will be taking during these classes written lessons.  A picture is worth a thousand words and visual learning is helpful for any of the classes. Remember to save an image of your favorite block from this class to post to the EQ blog page in the comment section.  Please make sure your image you post is indeed from this class.  If you need