EQ7 Tips & Tutorials - Part 2 of How to Import Fabrics into Your EQ7 Library

Yesterday I posted a tutorial about how where to find and download fabric images from the internet and how to organize them on your computer.  Today I am going to show you how to get those images into EQ7.

To import pictures from your computer into EQ7, follow these 4 steps:

Step 1 - Click on the "Libraries" tab and then "Fabric Library...".  This will bring up the Fabric Libraries window.

Step 2 - In the Fabric Libraries window, click on the "Import" button and select "From Image Files".  This will bring up the Import from Fabric Scans window.

Step 3 - Using your organized fabric files (more on how to organize them here), select the single image file you want and press Open or select an image file within a folder and then Ctrl-A (press Ctrl key and the A key at the same time) to select all of the files within the folder and press Open.

Step 4 - You will be brought back to the Fabric Libraries window and your fabrics you imported will show up on the right side of the window under the heading "Import Results".  (Don't stop here because your fabrics are not yet in your project).

Click on one of the fabric images within the Fabric Libraries window, press Ctrl-A again to select all of the fabric images and then click the "Add to Sketchbook" button.

Your fabric images will now show up in your Sketchbook Fabrics and Colors window (that pops up when you are coloring a block or quilt) at the end of the fabrics in the "Fabrics" tab.

And now you can play with your fabrics!

Bonus tip - If you have already imported fabrics into one EQ7 file and want to use them in another file, in Step 2 you can select "From Project" instead and all of the fabrics in that project (both EQ7 standards and your additional ones) will show up in the "Import Results" area.

Simply select the ones you want to import (holding the Ctrl key down clicking on the fabrics allows for you to select multiple images) and press the "Add to Sketchbook" button.

I hope you find these tutorials helpful!  Please e-mail me or leave a comment with any EQ topics you would like me to cover.

EQ7 Tips & Tutorials - Part 1 of How to Import Fabrics into Your EQ7 Library

One of my quilty friends Jayne asked a great question asking to get fabric images into your EQ7 library.  I started to write a tutorial for that and realized that it made sense to first show where to get fabric images.

So I broke the tutorial up into two parts, today I will be focusing on how to get fabric images onto your computer and tomorrow I will show you how to import them into EQ7.

Note:  As far as I can tell (and I am not a lawyer), the fabric images you find on the internet are for personal, home use only.  Not for commercial uses (like in printed pattern instructions, product packaging, websites, etc).

There are three main ways to get fabric images:

1. Free from the internet
2. Purchased from the internet
3. Photographed from your own stash

1.  Free from the internet:

Pros:

• Many of the fabric manufacturer's actually have places on their sites where you can download entire collections of fabric in a zip file (so you can download 20-40 fabric images at once).  
• They are free :)

Cons:

• Most of the images are not scaled properly for EQ7 making the scale of the fabric too big or small in the quilt (but you can use this trick to make them work).

Here is a bunch of places to find fabric images:

United Notions - Moda Fabrics - (Free) - The United Notions website contains almost 900 fabric collections and is constantly updated with the soon to be released and just released fabric.  Each collection is downloaded as a zip file.

Riley Blake - (Free) - For Riley Blake's fabric collection images, you need to select the fabric tab from the main menu, select the collection you wish to download, and then press the download images button.

Online Fabric Stores:  Some online fabric stores will allow you to download and use their fabric images provided you had purchased the fabric through them.

2.  Purchased Images from the Internet

Pros:

• Easy install  
• Fabric images are scaled correctly for EQ7
• Quickest way to get tons of fabric images pretty inexpensively

Cons:

• Not free

Electronic Quilt - ($7.95 for 1000+ images) - Electronic Quilt has many collections of fabric images for sale in categories such as Halloween prints, Batiks, and Fall 2015 releases.  I have never bought an image package from EQ, but I because EQ prepared it, most likely the images are more properly scaled than some other downloads.  (Note: I could not find out any information about use restrictions of the images on the EQ website.)

3.  Photographing Your Own Stash

Pros:

• Free
• You will have a indexed library of all of your fabrics 

Cons:

• Time consuming
• Colors and scale of fabrics may be off

Photographing your own stash is great because you can have your stash organized and ready to play with ion EQ whenever you want.  The downside is that this is the most time consuming and the colors and scale might not be correct.

Image Organization

Whichever method you use to acquire your fabric images, pretty soon you are going to have more files than you know what to do with on your computer.  I suggest that just as you organize your real fabrics you organize your online fabric image "stash" too.

On my computer I have a folder set up that is called "Fabric".  In that folder, I have have about 40 other folders, each with a collection name on them.  This way, if I am thinking that I want to play around with the new Bonnie and Camille fabric, I can go right to the "Hello Darling" folder for all of the images.  It takes just a few minutes to set everything up correctly to start with and it will save you a lot of time in the future.

I'll be back tomorrow with a tutorial on how you are going to get all of your new fabric images into EQ7 to start putting them into quilts.

EQ7 Tips and Tricks - Swap All Colors and Spraycan

(This tip is part of a growing EQ tutorial series, you can find all of my EQ Tips and Tricks right here.)

Welcome back for another EQ7 Tips and Tricks Tutorial.  I am first going to show you one of my most favorite tools in EQ7, the "Swap All Colors" button.

You can design quilts in many other programs like Power Point, Abobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, and others, but I have not found another program that allows for such quick and easy switching of colors and prints in a quilt rendering.

Here is our test quilt for today made up of a repeating chain block from EQ's block library in the original EQ provided colors.

Not bad, but I think that some of the pattern is lost because the 3 colors have lower contrast compared to each other.

To change all of one color within a quilt to another color:

1.  Select the "Swap All Colors" button on the right hand side of the screen.

2.  Select the color or fabric you would like to use.

3.  Click in the quilt on the color you would like to replace.  

The color within the quilt you click on will switch to the new color throughout the entire quilt.

With just a few clicks you have a whole different looking quilt and you can easily and quickly audition many colors and fabrics in your designs.

 

The next button to show is the Spraycan button which is the button right above the Swap All Colors button.  It works the same as the Swap All Colors button, but swaps the colors within a single block.

To change all of one color within a single quilt block to another color:

1.  Select the "Spraycan" button on the right hand side of the screen.

2.  Select the color or fabric you would like to use.

3.  Click in the quilt on the color you would like to replace.  

The color within the quilt block you click on will switch to the new color throughout the quilt block.

With a few clicks of the Spraycan button, I recolored the quilt blocks using a variety of April Showers by Bonnie and Camille prints.

I hope that you find these tutorials clear and helpful!  Let me know if you have any topics you would like me to cover.

I am very happy to link up with Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts, Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation, WIP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced, and Tips and Tutorials Tuesday @ Late Night Quilter.

EQ7 Tips and Tricks - Fussy Cutting

Welcome back for another EQ7 Tips and Tricks Tutorial.  Today I am going to show you how easy it is to move your fabric images around on your blocks to mimic fussy cutting your fabric.

(This tip is part of a growing EQ tutorial series, you can find all of my EQ Tips and Tricks right here.)

Here is our test quilt, a simple star quilt using fabrics from The Cottage Garden collection by the Quilted Fish for Riley Blake.  The middle turquoise fabric has a wonderful large scale print which is chopped up and lost in this version.

To "fussy cut" the fabrics, you need to first add the Fussy Cut button on the right hand side of your screen.

1.  To add the Fussy Cut button:

a)  Click the "Customize Toolbar" button, which is the button at the bottom of the column of buttons on the right hand side of your screen.

b)  This will bring up a box with some options, click on "Add/Remove Buttons...".

c)  A listing of buttons will show up and the Fussy Cut button will be about three-quarters of the way down the list.  Click the button or the words and a check mark should show up to the left of the button.  You now should have the button installed :)

2.  To Fussy Cut in EQ7

a)  You are now ready to fussy cut.  Select the fussy cut button on the right side of the screen (that you just added).

b)  Click and hold the mouse button on the fabric image within the block piece you would like to move relative to the block.

c)  Move your mouse and the fabric will move with it.  When you are satisfied with the fabric design placement within the block piece, release the mouse button.

Here is our block with some fussy cutting ... much nicer!

I hope that you find these tutorials clear and helpful!  Let me know if you have any topics you would like me to cover.

I am very happy to link up with Let's Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts, Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation, WIP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced, and Tips and Tutorials Tuesday @ Late Night Quilter.