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EQ6 and EQ6 Upgrade have now arrived and
are in stock, ready to send to you NOW! 1
March 2007: EQ6 Block Book released -
pre-order now!!
If you would like to join the Gecko Gully mailing list,
you will be among the first to receive updates.
You can join the mailing list here:
Package deals are available if you are
wanting to buy a combination of EQ products. Click here for details!
I recommend that if you don't know about the previous
version, EQ5, you see the EQ5 page. The following is
the information provided by Electric Quilt to give the differences between EQ5
and EQ6:
While EQ6 is the newest and most advanced version of our
best-selling Electric Quilt software, it's also the most user-friendly. This
incredibly full-featured quilt design and drawing program has been especially
designed with beginners as well as advanced designers in mind. Use it to design
quilts, draw blocks, scan in fabrics or select from over 20,000 blocks, fabrics,
colors, embroidery, photos, threads, quilt layouts and borders included in EQ6.
Use EQ6 simply to try out colors, or print patterns in any size. Or use EQ6 to
forge a quilting career, producing professional, high-resolution block and quilt
images print-ready for books or magazines. This is software you'll never
outgrow!
There are a few technical things you need to be aware of that are different
in EQ6: General System Requirements:
Additional Requirements for EQ5 to EQ6 Upgrade:
 | EQ5 must be installed for the installation to work. |
I encourage you to
read the FAQ on EQ6 and
EQ6 Upgrade before buying.
1. Blocks
EQ6 has over 4300 blocks which can be printed in any
size.
| Pieced blocks |
| Appliqué blocks |
| Paper Piecing (Foundation) blocks |
| Quilting Stencils |
| Over 1200 NEW blocks since EQ5 |
| Classic Pieced: Baskets, Chains, Dresden Fans & Plates, Feathered
Stars, Lone Stars, Maltese Cross, Pickle Dishes, Priscilla blocks, Variable
Stars, Wedding Rings, and Whole Top Designs |
| Contemporary Pieced: Fans, Sun Compasses, and World Flags |
| Foundation Pieced: Alphabets, Animals, Beach Panorama, Cars &
Trucks, Crazy Blocks, Flowers, Houses, New York Beauties, and Toys |
| Classic Appliqué: Baskets, Eight Elements, Silhouettes, and Vases |
| Contemporary Appliqué: Dogs, Hawaiian, Purses & Bags, and Shoes |
| Motifs: Birds, Butterflies, Grapes & Vines, Leaves, and Wreaths |
| Quilting Stencils: Border Stencils, Flowers, Hearts, Leaves, and
Ribbons |
| Border Blocks: Checked, Curved, Interwoven, Picket, Scrolls,
Striped, Swags, Triangular, and Vines |
| NEW Find blocks by category in the
Block library: We've marked all the blocks according to difficulty,
piecing info, holidays, and themes so you can just search for a Five Patch
block with rectangles only or a Christmas block with Flowers. |
2. Quilts
The number of quilts you can create in EQ6 is endless. You can start new
blank quilts in any of our automatic styles, get quilts from the layout library
by size or style, create your own quilt layout from a block, or even use a quick
quilt already made for you!
Automatic Styles
Quickly make Samplers, On-Point Quilts, Medallions, or Baby Blocks
using any of the 8 automatic styles. |
Layout Library Quilts
Need to make a queen sized quilt, but feeling particularly un-creative? Or, do
you want to start a medallion quilt and don't know where to begin? Open up the
Layout library and use a ready-made quilt layout as a starting point for the
quilt of your dreams.
| By Size - Different layouts (horizontal, on-point,
Bargello, Grandmother's Flower Garden, etc.) in sizes from California King all
the way to Crib. Even includes layouts for Miniature Quilts, Table Runners,
and Placemats. |
| By Style - Showcase your blocks in a quilt from any one
of the numerous styles, including Horizontal or On-Point Medallions, Stars,
and Irregular Grids. |
NEW Create a Quilt from a Block
Choose any block from the library or one that you draw which has horizontal and
vertical lines. Convert it to a quilt and you can set blocks in all the spaces!
Turn this block:
into this quilt:
NEW Quick Quilts
When you start the program you can create or open your own projects or start
with one of ours. Just open the project, choose your quilt size and print away!
The quilt is already designed for you. Swap out colors or fabrics if you like to
make it your own.
You can add the extras to any quilt
| "Float" appliqué designs or pieced blocks on top of your quilt. |
| "Quilt" your quilt with any thread color you'd like. |
| Create sashes and multiple borders. |
| Keep note cards on each quilt, saving design ideas. |
(In Houston) I got to
watch Andrea demonstrate the new drawing tools in EQ6. Oh, wow. I had been
beta testing, but to see her in action showed me that we have some really fun
tools to use. Get your creative thinking caps on for appliqué drawing! It has
never been so easy. Well, "easy" is relative. Be sure to give yourself time to
experiment with these. Watch the videos, which are plentiful. Your experience
with EQ5 will make much of EQ6 "intuitive." But we all will have something new
to learn in EQ6.
Barbara Vlack, U.S.A. -
author of EQ5 Quilt Design
(quoted with permission)
3. Borders
We've added new tools, new blocks, and new border styles!
| Use the NEW Set Auto Border
tool
to put a border around your quilt in any of the following styles: Checked,
Curved, Flying Geese, Scrolls, Swags, and more. |
| Try out any of the NEW Border Blocks
in the Block Library including: Interwoven Styles, Single Block
Patterns, and Appliqué Vines. |
| We've added 2 NEW border styles
to help you line up blocks between multiple borders. |
4. Fabrics
EQ6 has over 5000 newly scanned fabrics... the same quality as the ones you
would find in the fabric stores or in our STASH series.
| Fabrics by Category - need some dots? or how about an
antique double-pink? Just pick fabrics from any of the 1280 fabrics organized
in these categories: Antique, Colors, Geometric, Holidays, Nature or Region. |
| Fabrics by Color - yes, there is a difference between
plum and violet, and between rust, warm brown and gray brown. Pick from any of
the 1225 fabrics organized by color. And you can even search the entire
library by Color. |
| Fabrics by Manufacturer - Choose fabrics from any of
these manufacturers basic lines: Andover, Benartex, Classic Cottons,
FreeSpirit, Hoffman, Maywood Studio, Michael Miller, Moda, Northcott, P&B
Textiles, Red Rooster, RJR, Robert Kaufman, South Sea Imports, Timeless
Treasures, Troy, and Wilmington Prints. |
Dots in a quilt with 4 inch blocks
Dots in a quilt with 8 inch blocks
There are endless possibilities for the included fabrics:
| Want to see what your quilt would really look like with the fabrics you
have in mind? Scan your own fabrics and import them into EQ6. Color your quilt
with the real fabrics you plan to use before you even sew one stitch. Store
the scanned fabrics in EQ6 and create your own fabric library. |
| NEW Search by Color in the
Fabric library. |
| NEW Fabric scales
automatically on the quilt. What you see on the screen is what you’ll get ! |
| IMPROVED Fussy-cut fabrics
to see a fabric's design better. |
| Make your own colors, including shaded palettes. |
| NEW Rotate fabrics right on
your screen by degrees or to the edge of a seam (even when you don't know the
degree by which you need to rotate). |
| NEW Random Recolor - Recolor
your quilt to be lighter/darker, more or less saturated, change the colors
around the color wheel or even randomly color your quilt with a click! |
5. Print
| Templates - Specify the size of seam allowance around
each patch. Move or delete templates before you print.
NEW Rotate templates on print preview. |
| Foundation Patterns - EQ6 numbers each pattern,
separating units and adding seam allowance. If you draw a pattern, EQ6 numbers
it for you. Move or delete foundation pattern sections before you print. |
| Rotary Cutting Charts - Print rotary cutting charts for
blocks in EQ6 or blocks you design yourself. |
| Blocks - Print them as line drawings, in gray scale, in
color, as appliqué patterns, or as quilting stencils! Print off your favorite
blocks as line drawings and make quick coloring book pages for children. |
| Quilts - Print your quilts as line drawings or colored
with fabrics. |
| IMPROVED Fabric Yardage Estimates
- Calculate yardage in inches or centimeters and print yardage charts. |
You can also draw and print your own original patterns.
6. Libraries
We've streamlined the libraries to be easier to use.
NEW Now you can import directly from other projects and
files, and copy and paste right into your library.
In addition to the 4300+ blocks in the Block Library, 5000+ scanned fabrics
in the Fabric Library, 400+ quilts in the Layout Library, you will also be able
to use items from the:
| NEW Importing Features - Now
you can import from other EQ software projects or shopping bags right through
the library. Just open the library you need and choose Import from Project
(use this for BlockBase searches, EQ5 projects or palettes, and STASH shopping
bags). Or, you can import image files through the photo or fabric library. You
can also import your own embroidery designs (.EXP format only) to try out on
your latest quilt, then save in your own embroidery library |
| Embroidery Library - Jazz up your quilt with all new
images of embroidery designs from Viking, PFAFF, and Cactus Punch. Try out the
embroidery on your quilt to decide if you want to get the embroidery card so
you can sew out the designs. |
| NEW Photo Library
- Photo and memory quilts have never been this much fun! Use any of our
forest, garden, sky or textured pictures to
create life-like fabric. Or, import your own pictures of
family, events, or scenery to build up your own collection of photos to use in
quilts. Photos can be in the JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, or TIFF format. |
| NEW Thread Library -
Ackermann, Aurifil, Coats & Clark, Gutermann, Mettler, Robison-Anton,
Signature, Sulky, Superior, Valdani, and YLI have let us know their thread
colors so you can color your embroidery and quilting stitches with the spool
you're actually using! You can also create a Thread library of your own
spools. |
7. Drawing Tools
We've completely reworked the drawing side of EQ. You can draw blocks from
scratch and even make new blocks without drawing!
| Draw pieced, appliqué or combination blocks. |
| Draw pieced blocks almost as quickly as you would draw a block on paper in
EasyDraw. |
| Draw appliqué blocks in PatchDraw using easy drag and drop patches
(hearts, leaves, feathers, tear-drops, circles, triangles, octagons and more). |
| NEW Draw with the Freehand
tool to make realistic patches. |
| NEW Vines, scrolls, and
stems have never been easier than with the new Brush Stroke tool. |
| NEW Draw pieced blocks in
PatchDraw using “click and snap” grids for stars, kaleidoscopes, and
compasses. |
| Use the WreathMaker to turn shapes into wreaths or quick quilting
stencils. |
| Draw sash or border blocks with ease on a rectangular drawing board. |
| Draw just about anything from a 4-Patch to a Giant Dahlia or Lone Star. |
| NEW Import images to trace
and turn your favorite picture or drawing into a block. Images imported for
tracing can be in the JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, or TIFF format. Choose how you want
the image cropped and how transparent you want it right from EQ6. |
8. Help, help, and more help
Learning has never been easier or more fun.
| The EQ6 User Manual is the best book we’ve ever
written! We've split the 304 pages up into lessons and documentation. There
are 6 fun and easy lessons for learning how to set up quilts, print, use
layers, draw in EasyDraw and draw in PatchDraw. We took nothing for granted
and made the lessons work for people who have never used a computer before.
You’ll also get step-by-step instructions on working with every tool and
feature. |
| Watch any of the 60+ Help Videos, then try the steps
yourself. It's like having a teacher right there beside you! Videos have been
grouped into Getting Started, Designing Quilts, Using the Quilt Tools, Drawing
Blocks, Simple Tasks, and Printing. You'll learn everything from "What is a
Project?" to "How to make a Quilt Label." |
| Try out the EQ6 Help Files. Each part of the program is
documented with color pictures and directions. It's like surfing a web site of
EQ6 knowledge. Here we've been able to get a lot more "wordy" than in the book
because these are web pages, not book pages. So, if you need a further
explanation of anything you learn in the software, just check out the Help
Contents, or find it using the Index, or Search. |
| If that isn't enough, we've even added ToolHelp - Turn on
the Dynamic ToolHelp and a window will appear at the side of your worktable.
Hover over any button in any toolbar and learn what it does. |
9. For the Advanced Designer
EQ6 is a teacher and pattern-maker’s dream:
| NEW Fabrics - import fabrics
in JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, or TIFF formats and it automatically rescales
perfectly on the quilt or block. |
| Letters - write on your quilts with the
NEW Set Applique Text tool. You can add
a verse or add sewing directions right on top of the quilt. It's up to you. |
| Export Metafiles - export vector images in the .EMF
format that are outline only, outline and fill, or fill only. Fill colors are
the average color of the fabric in the block. Directions are included in the
EQ6 User Manual for how to pull apart and label metafiles to make a
piecing diagram in Microsoft® Word. |
| NEW Export Images - you need
a high resolution image? What size? What format? EQ6 can do it and the fabric
is scaled perfectly. Magazine editors and book publishers will love you! |
10. For the beginning designer
Just because EQ6 can do so much, doesn't mean that it still can't be easy to
use. We've kept our beginning quilters and beginning computer users in mind
throughout the entire software design and documentation process.
| NEW Draw without drawing -
Need a new block? Use the Serendipity tools to frame, merge, and tilt blocks
without drawing a thing. |
| NEW Add borders full of blocks in 3-4
clicks - Use the Set Auto Borders tool to make your quilt look
stunning. |
| NEW Use Quick Quilt Projects
- try any of these quilt favorites to color, resize, print, and sew. |
| NEW Make quilt labels - Use
the new text tool to write out your labels and make the back of your quilt as
interesting as the front. |
| NEW Find blocks within your sewing
capabilities - all the library blocks have been marked according to
difficulty. So if you're a beginning quilter, why not try beginning block with
rectangles only? Or how about a beginning block with rectangles and triangles
only? |
| NEW Learn the software like you have
a teacher beside you - We've made the videos and EQ6 User Manual
lessons as user-friendly as possible with you in mind. |
Includes
EQ6 comes with the EQ6 User Manual and a CD to install.
But, of course you always have us to call or
email whenever you need help.
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