For those of you who are serious quilters and fabric crafters, I have just purchased a product that has the possibility of totally revolutionizing the way you work.  Electric Quilt 6 comes programmed with over 5,000 scanned fabrics in its library (staple, long-term fabrics from major companies),  with over 4,000 block patterns to play around with and the ability to scan your own fabrics into the library to use as well.  There are 62 videos built in to the program that are clear, concise and simple to follow.  With a couple of hours investment of time to learn the basics of the program you can be off an running like I was.

Have you ever looked at a pile of fabric that you picked out in the quilt shop but got home and weren't sure exactly what you were planning on doing with it?  Or worse, gotten half way through cutting out a project and had to stop for a while and then tried to remember what you were planning when you got back to it?!  If you design your quilt on EQ6 it will give you the patterns to cut, the placement of every fabric color and the precise block placement to assure that the quilt you were envisioning is the quilt that you produce. 

Once you pick the quilt style that you would like to create, you can change anything you want about it instantly and with perfect accuracy.  Add a border, make it narrower, change out the border and try any combination of fabrics until you get it just right.  You can do all of this without wasting a single square inch of your precious fabric in unnecessary mistakes!  Even better is that you can create as many versions of the quilt layout as you like and decide which one is the most beautiful, giving yourself the confidence to make that first cut.

As most of you know, I have been working intensively on the new line of quilting fabrics that I am designing for Loralie Designs' (http://www.loraliedesigns.com/) fabric company.  It's a huge undertaking and part of the process for me is to test the color, pattern and scale of each fabric to make sure that it will work well in the real world.  In years' past, prior to the fabric being actually produced there was no way to determine that they would really work except in printing paper samples and playing around with them a bit.  Now, with the EQ6 I have been able to create virtual quilts that are so real and lifelike that I'm dieing to see them made up in real life.

If you have earlier versions of Electric Quilt, I believe the most important difference between the programs is that EQ6 actually scales the fabric perfectly so that whether you look up close at a quilt block or you are laying out a king-sized quilt, the fabric adjusts to your perspective and it looks as it will in real life.  There are complete lists of what is availabe in each product and there is an upgrade package available.  You can purchase Electric Quilt 6 at http://www.electricquilt.com/ or look at their retail store list for a quilt shop near you.  It retails for $149.00.

I found a fabulous quilt shop in Clovis, CA called "Quilter's Paradise" and it is!  The store is huge and brimming with fabulous fabrics, samples, books, magazines and other quilting goodies.  They have knowledgeable and friendly support staff ready to help in any way they can.  Their web site is http://www.quilters-paradise.com/. 

I can't wait to show you my fabrics, but of course I can't do that just yet!  But as soon as I can I will.

Audrey Jeanne Roberts