Thursday, October 26, 2006

Designing with Electric Quilt

Despite my best intentions, I didn't get far with finalising my tax return yesterday. Instead, I got distracted with miscellaneous guild business and resizing quilt images in Photoshop so that they have 300 dpi resolution suitable for publication in the next issue of the guild magazine, The Template. I enjoy getting to grips with technology but some applications are so powerful I know I am only scratching the surface. It is instructive to be confronted with a specific task that requires you to learn more about particular aspect of a product. Reading manuals is all very well but there is no substitute for hands-on practice.

I have pre-ordered the upgrade to Electric Quilt 6 and look forward to familiarising myself with its new features and functionality. Although I don't use EQ5 for every quilt I make, I do find it is a useful planning tool particularly when I am making a quilt for someone else and want to convey in advance what is whirling around in my mind. For example, when I sent out "confetti" circles for people to sign for my sister Amy's wedding quilt, I included this concept design for their information:

Having a concept design did not preclude the serendipity factor coming into play. Here is the resulting Confetti Wedding Quilt, the border being inspired by a text message sent by my brother who could not attend the wedding:

Similarly, when I decided to make an green and purple quilt for a new baby in the family, I started out with this concept design:

Along the way, I decided to go for a more scrappy look and Apple & Lilac came into being:

Back to playing with my receipts and dockets...

1 Comments:

Blogger Paula, the quilter said...

I am the same way with EQ5. I like to play with it and the results are usually conceptual. I sometimes get frustrated and export/import into CorelDraw.

October 28, 2006 5:54 am  

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