Fun Using EQ8

 Electric Quilt 8 Fun

I have been hearing about EQ8 for a while now and finally decided I needed to have this quilt making software. I purchased it and downloaded directly from the EQ8 Website a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I have been playing around and learning how to use it. I have found several really helpful tutorials on Youtube and the EQ8 online site. I am quite comfortable with different design software so this really helped speed the learning curve along. However, I did have some trouble understanding the mathematics of building a quilt. In my mind, if I told the software I wanted my block to be 12 inches when I completed piecing the block, it should be 12 inches right? Nope, the software considers the seam allowance. So my blocks came out to 12.5 inches because I had entered 1/4 inch seam allowance. It was a little confusing until I learned a "finished block" is the size of the block after piecing it. 

Also designing a quilt and actually constructing it are two different animals. I could design quilts all day long. But, being fairly new to quilting, piecing these fantastic designs has been challenging. Of course, not knowing what I don't know, I picked some hard to piece type blocks for my first quilt. Let me just go into the first quilt I designed in EQ8. I'm calling this one "Little Storm". First, I will show you the photo of the design from the software-not the actual quilt I made. I did not color in the boarders.

The sides and corner pieces were easy peasy. The dang Storm at Sea blocks about killed me! LOL. I had never pieced the diamond in the rectangle before. I first tried to do them using the templates from the EQ8. The rotary cutting of these tiny corner pieces was brutal. I struggled with the piecing and even with some tutoring from a dear friend, I still had great difficulty. I did get some validation that this was a hard block by several quilters who I shared my frustrations with. When I said "storm at sea block", I got that "OH" look. Anyway, someone suggested I get the Deb Tucker Diamond Rectangle ruler. So I purchased that and it helped so much. She purposely designed the ruler/template so the pieces are bigger and can be trimmed to correct size later. But, I had already completed a couple of the blocks in my wonky fashion and I was unwilling to make those over. So in piecing the wonky ones with the better ones, it still came out not show worthy by any means.

But, I still love it and I am currently working on my Storm at Sea Redemption quilt. I'm calling this one "Tropical Storm". I have purchased the fabric and am currently in process of cutting out all of the pieces. I am focusing on precision cutting using my Cricut Maker for a lot of the blocks and the Deb Tucker ruler for the diamonds in rectangles. I will keep you posted on the progress.