EQ8 Lessons with Yvonne

Welcome to Design and Sew 2 – Lessons with Yvonne.  This is lesson three (3) in this series. I hope you have enjoyed the first two lessons with this series.  We are continuing with creating quilts in the EQ8 program without having to draw our blocks.  There are thousands of blocks built into the program that we can use as they are or edit them slightly to create a block unique to us.  This is also true for quilt layouts.  There are many quilt layouts all ready for us to explore and add our unique touch to make them specific to us.  This is a stand-alone lesson and you do not have to do the first two lessons in the series to do this one.  However, we learn new tips and techniques in each lesson so you may want to try the lesson without doing any sewing of your designs

As crafting people, we rarely do only one type of craft.  Sewing, knitting, crocheting, painting, embroidery, photography, quilting, card making, and so much more are creative expressions of ourselves.  Working with fabrics is my first choice of creativity.  I love to work with fabrics, threads, designing, digitizing,  and piecing it all together to create one cohesive design. EQ8 is a quilt design program that uses graphics to help us ‘see’ how our actual project will look finished while still in the ‘virtual world’ of creativity.  As an educator for both machine embroidery and quilting, I can use my EQ8 to merge both of these creative loves of mine.  For those of you who still have EQ7 with the EQStitch add-on program, you can create embroidery directly in your program.  Everyone else uses another software program to create their embroidery.   Have you ever wondered why EQ has an embroidery library?  If

Welcome to Design and Sew 2-lessons with Yvonne.  This is lesson number two (2) in this series.  In this lesson, we will be creating unique blocks without drawing them ourselves.  We will use blocks built into the program and then merge them with other patterns to create new blocks.  This is easily done in the EQ8 program and offers stunning results.  We will place these blocks into a quilt layout and create even more options as we manipulate the quilt layout worktable.  This will be a fun and rewarding class. You may want to watch the video first at the bottom of this blog page before beginning your design.  This helps you to visualize what it is you will be creating in this lesson. Launch your EQ8 program from your desktop.  If you have changed the preference settings in the program since the last class, you need to go back

Welcome to the new DESIGN AND SEW 2–LESSONS WITH YVONNE.  In this series of lessons, we will be concentrating on using the built-in elements of EQ8 to create our designs.  We will not be drawing, but rather will be using what is already in the program and editing the designs to work for us in our new layout.  Each session we will look at a different style and function of the tools for each style.  You have two weeks between lessons so you will have time to sew your designs if you choose between each lesson.  At the end of the lesson, you will find a video that shows me creating a design that follows the written lesson.  You may prefer to watch the video first and then follow the step by step written lesson so you have a better idea of what direction we will be going with.  You

A new DESIGN AND SEW ALONG 2, will be launching soon. I hope you can join me in this next set of free lessons on the Electric Quilt website.  Be sure to sign up for the newsletter and lessons notifications. You can sign up for the newsletters and the blog postings there so you won’t miss any new lessons as they are posted.  If you missed the first set of DESIGN AND SEW ALONG WITH YVONNE you can still access all those lessons here.  The lessons will begin on May 3 and then a new lesson will be available every two weeks following that. May 3, May 17, May 31, June 14, and June 28.  The two weeks between lessons will give you time to stitch your designs if you choose to do so.  This series will focus on using the built-in designs and  EQ tools to create your blocks and quilts.

Welcome to the DESIGN AND SEW ALONG WITH YVONNE Lesson 5.  This is the final lesson in this series.  We will add a block border to our previous blocks and explore how the EQ8 program helps us to accomplish this.  I often do not think of a border until the center of my quilt is constructed.  This way I can try out different border options to see what will work best with the center blocks I have designed.  Instead of posting our blocks to the blog page at the end of this lesson, I am asking that you post the image of your completed quilt layout for others to see. Launch your EQ8 program from your desktop. On the opening page, click on ‘open an existing project’ and navigate to your DESIGN AND SEW WITH YVONNE project. Confirm that you have your project open by seeing the title of the

Did you know that EQ8 has placemat options already built into the program ready for us to personalize and use for our favorite festive occasions?  It makes designing and sewing these mini-projects really quick and simple. Launch your EQ8 program from the desktop. Click on the folder on the left side of the screen and name your new project ‘Holiday Placemats’.    Look at the top of your screen and make sure the named project is at the top.  This way, all the work you do on placemats will be in this one project folder. Click on LIBRARIES>Layout Libraries at the top of the screen. In the layout library box, on the left side of the box, navigate to EQ8 Libraries>Layouts by size>Placemats. Select the third layout in the pane by clicking on it.  A blue selection box will appear around it.  Add it to the sketchbook. NOTE: Most of