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EQStitch Sunday Stitch

Posted 11-15-2016 by | Posted in: EQStitch Favorite Posts Sunday Stitch

I have just returned from the Houston International Quilt Festival where is was my pleasure to teach several classe on EQStitch and EQ7.  There were a lot of questions about further educational information for more study especially with the EQStitch software.  I felt these questions would be of interest to people who take my EQStitch classes on line at EQ University so I thought I would answer them here. 1.  Is there a specific order to taking the EQStitch classes at EQUniversity? There are no pre-requisites for these classes but I did write them in an orderly fashion.  You may take them in any order.  Not all the information is repeated from one class to the other.  As you progress through the lessons, more information is added to the information in the first classes.  I suggest you take the classes in the order they were written, but it is entirely

EQStitch Sunday Stitch

Posted 10-23-2016 by | Posted in: EQStitch Favorite Posts Sunday Stitch

I am writing my lessons for EQ7/EQStitch classes at the Houston Quilt Festival 2016 now.  I will be heading to Houston on Oct 30 for a week of classes.  I look forward to meeting all you energetic EQ users.   The products produced by the Electric Quilt company just keep getting better and better.  I use them all and link them together to get one of a kind projects. I invite you all to attend some of my classes.  Click on the link below to see some little samples of my works in the short video. Classes_at_Houston_Quilt_Festival_2016

EQStitch Sunday Stitch October 2016

Posted 10-16-2016 by | Posted in: EQStitch Favorite Posts Sunday Stitch

Add interest to text shapes by using stitches and shadows.  Text fonts stitch best if they are block style capital letters.  Fonts that have thin and thick areas are more difficult to stitch and still look good.  Bold, block letters have more space to them to add decorative stitches. Open your EQStitch program. Add the tools to  the toolbar by clicking on the arrow at the bottom of the toolbar and then on the words add/remove buttons. Place a checkmark in front of the tools and then close the selection box by clicking on a white space on the page. Click on the drawing board options box and set the embroidery fill to ‘smooth’ and the embroidery edge stitch to be  ‘no edge’ setting.     Select the text tool from the toolbar.  Move the cursor over to the artwork area and click/hold/drag/release a text box on the page. Double

EQStitch Sunday Stitch September 2016

Posted 09-18-2016 by | Posted in: EQStitch Favorite Posts Sunday Stitch

Sometimes less is more.  You can design overall projects using only a few different shapes.  Start with three simple shapes and then move  your hoop from place to place to create an overall scene with the basic shapes. Open the EQStitch program and search the libraries for the shapes you want to use. I chose an oak leaf, a pumpkin and an acorn.  Add the shapes to the sketchbook. Open the shapes on the block worktable (where they were created),  and copy/ paste them to the stitch worktable to be able to use them in the embroidery machine.   Do this for each shape separately rather than combining all the elements on one stitch worktable. Save each of the design elements to the sketchbook. Add the stitch properties  you want for your basic shapes and then export them in the file format you need for your machine. I did a

EQStitch Sunday Stitch August 2016

Posted 08-21-2016 by | Posted in: EQStitch Favorite Posts Sunday Stitch

Applique is the easiest way to create large areas of a design.  Adding embroidery onto, inserted into, and embellished around applique fabrics will increase the interest in the design.  Also, it makes the sewing at the machine go so much faster when the large areas are applique fabrics.  Filling every area with stitches takes time and isn’t always necessary to make a nice design. Open your EQStitch program from the desktop. Click on the work on stitching icon at the top of the screen. Click on STITCHING>New Design>Machine Applique. Use the shape tools and make a simple drawing of a flower with a stem and leaves. Click on the fabric tab and add fabric to all of the elements. Click on the stitch tab and assign the edge stitches of your choice with the set applique edge tool. Color the stitches with the set thread tool. Add the design to

EQStitch Sunday Stitch #52

Posted 07-24-2016 by | Posted in: EQStitch Favorite Posts Sunday Stitch

Sunday Stitch is changing!  Instead of being a weekly blog it is changing to a monthly blog with new ideas presented the third Sunday of each month.  I can’t believe it has been a year of weekly blog entries all ready.  Print the blogs and have them bound to use as a  quick reference guide on how to work with the tools and inspirational ideas suggesting how  you can get more creative with the EQStitch program. Have you considered thread color as a digitizing element?  Simply applying color to the elements of a design can create a unique look.  Even with monochromatic designs you can get amazing results with your designs. Open your EQStitch program on the desktop to luanch it and start a new design on the embroidery worktable. Change the size of the hoop area to be a 125 x 175 mm hoop (5 x 7 inch stitch field).

EQStitch Sunday Stitch #51

Posted 07-17-2016 by | Posted in: EQStitch Favorite Posts Sunday Stitch

As a digitizer for machine embroidery, you need to consider your end product.  What are you digitizing for?  Are you making a home decor item, a quilt, a decorative element on a garment, or for a craft that is not traditionally done on fabric?  All of the different projects require different settings for stitches when you are digitizing.  Also consider  how the product will be handled.  Will it hang on a wall, be washed constantly, or simply viewed and treasured with little touch?  So many questions need to be asked before you even begin as it influences how you digitize the design. Consider how you would digitize an embroidery design for stitching on card stock.  If you have stitches that are small in length and very dense and close together, it will actually poke so many holes into the card stock that the design will fall out of the card.

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