If you haven’t heard of this yet, EQ (Electric Quilt) is software used for designing quilts.

And it’s very reasonably priced.

I had the opportunity, recently, to learn EQ7 and get to know EQ expert, writer and educator Barb Vlack.  Within minutes, she had us designing quilts.  Barb will be teaching Electric Quilt at International Quilt Festival in Houston.  If you are interested, I highly recommend her class.

As you can imagine, the program gives you rotary cutting instructions, fabric yardage and templates to complete your design. Their website Electric Quilt offers training, books, downloadable fabrics and tons of other support materials.  The blog, doyoueq.com offers a quilt club, challenges, and a stunning, stunning quilt gallery of customer’s designs, laid side by side with the quilts they then produced from the designs.

Did I say stunning?

After only a few minutes of playing in the software, I designed this quilt.

With another click it became this.

Now it may take a little longer to actually sew it.

Or I can choose to just enjoy it and sew it later. Or never sew it.

But it’s still fun to discover the possibilities — my unique possibilities. You can create your own appliques, and with a plug-in, you can even create your own embroidery.  The ideas are endless.  The program comes pre-loaded with something like 4500 blocks and designs, so if you never create a block yourself, it will still keep you busy for the rest of your life.  And you can also display fabric instead of just colors. These images I’m showing? They would make great greeting cards — more ideas.

I could see myself getting lost for days in this software.

But what a terrific way to challenge ourselves, learn new techniques and explore design.

Do you EQ?

Maybe you should.