I've been using Electric Quilt (EQ), a computerized quilt designing program, now for a number of years. Because I only use it sporadically, I am by no means an expert. But when EQ7 was recently upgraded to EQ8, I knew this upgrade was on my "need to have" list.

I initially learned EQ6 on a PC. But when they released a version of EQ7 that was Apple compatible I made the switch. Using EQ on Apple computer, both laptops and desk computers, has worked well for me.

EQ8 is set up a bit differently than EQ7 and some of the tools have new names. The toolbar with blocks chosen for the quilt, colors, and fabric choices that used to be on the right side of the screen is now above the screen on the left side and the tools open in a box next to the work area.

It looks like this program has a lot more versatility for creating your own blocks and quilts. But so far, I have only used a basic layout, adding blocks from EQ8's block library. Setting up a layout was straightforward, as was adding and changing borders from the grids available in the program.

For the quilt above I used the block "Strawberry Smoothie" (left below) and "Road to California" (right below). It was really easy to plug blocks into layout grid, change blocks in the layout and rotate them to different positions. I changed colors used in the library blocks to the colorway of my choice. You can also upload scanned pictures of fabric if you want to see the actual quilt you are designing. Here are the two blocks. It's OK to share these blocks...EQ8's software is copyrighted but the blocks are not.

I've had a bit of "where is that tool?" to deal with, but overall, I'm really enjoying using the EQ8 Upgrade. I think the next thing I'll try is designing my own blocks. That's something I did often in EQ7. It will be fun to see how it works in EQ8.