⚡ Quick Answer — from Corey, Chief Quilter
Electric Quilt — most quilters know the current version as EQ8 — is quilt design software from The Electric Quilt Company that lets you design a whole quilt on your computer before you cut a single piece of fabric. You arrange blocks, audition your actual fabrics and colorways on screen, resize anything instantly, and when the design is right, EQ8 calculates your yardage and prints your cutting charts, templates, and foundation patterns. It runs on both PC and Mac.
Hey everyone, Corey here. (And yes — the name makes us smile too. Different company, same love of quilts.) Folks ask about Electric Quilt whenever they outgrow graph paper: you love designing your own quilts, but you are tired of recoloring sketches by hand and guessing yardage. Here's what the software actually does, and how to know if it fits the way you quilt.
What can you design with EQ8?
Pretty much any quilt you can picture. Start from a layout in the library, use a pre-designed Quick Quilt project, or build your layout from scratch at any size. The Block Library holds more than 6,000 pre-drawn blocks you can drop in as-is or edit, and the drawing tools let you draft your own blocks in any style — pieced, appliqué, paper-pieced — or trace a photo or sketch. Swap blocks, rotate them, add borders and sashing, and watch the whole quilt change in seconds. If you design on paper now, think of EQ8 as the same sketchbook with an undo button and a very patient eraser.
Can EQ8 show me my real fabrics and calculate yardage?
Yes — this is the feature that sells most quilters. The Fabric Library comes pre-loaded with over 6,200 fabrics from manufacturers, and you can scan or photograph fabric from your own stash and import it, so the quilt on screen wears the fabric you actually own. Audition ten colorways in the time one colored-pencil sketch takes. Then, when the design settles, EQ8 calculates yardage estimates — borders included — based on the fabric width you choose, and updates the numbers automatically when you change the design. It can even work in fat quarters. No more buying two extra yards "just in case." (Unless you want to. We don't judge — stash is stash.)
Does EQ8 print patterns, or just pictures?
It prints the working papers, not just the pretty picture. From your finished design you can print rotary-cutting charts, templates, and foundation (paper-piecing) patterns at the exact block sizes you set, with seam allowances handled for you. That print step is what turns a screen design into a sewable pattern — and it's the same yardage-and-size math we walk through by hand in our quilt sizes and dimensions guide, just automated.
Is EQ8 hard to learn for a beginner?
It's full-featured software, so there's a learning curve — but beginners are who the on-ramp was built for. Quick Quilt projects give you a finished design to play with on day one, and there are hundreds of lessons and videos built around the program. On our shelves, the friendly starting point is EQ8 Lessons for Beginners, a 128-page spiral-bound book of step-by-step exercises covering drawing blocks, importing fabric scans, designing quilts, and printing patterns and yardage charts — it lies flat next to your keyboard, which matters more than you'd think. When you're ready to go deeper, EQ8 Designing Quilts takes you further into designing quilts, blocks, and borders. And if you fall in love with block drafting, the companion BlockBase+ catalog software opens up thousands more published blocks to design with.
Do I need EQ8 if I mostly sew from patterns?
Honest answer? Maybe not. If you happily sew published patterns as written, graph paper and a good pattern library — like our patterns collection — will serve you well. EQ8 earns its keep when you start asking "what if": what if this block were 9 inches instead of 12, what if the border were navy, what if I set these blocks on point. If those questions light you up, the software will feel less like a program and more like a playground. Completely up to you — and if you try it, take your time and play. Designing is supposed to be fun. We'll see you next time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Electric Quilt (EQ8) software?
EQ8 is quilt design software from The Electric Quilt Company. It lets you design quilts and blocks on a PC or Mac, audition real fabrics and colorways on screen, and print yardage estimates, rotary-cutting charts, templates, and foundation patterns from your design.
Does EQ8 work on Mac and PC?
Yes — EQ8 is available for both PC and Mac.
How many blocks and fabrics come with EQ8?
The Block Library includes more than 6,000 pre-drawn blocks, and the Fabric Library comes pre-loaded with over 6,200 fabrics. You can also scan or photograph your own stash fabrics and import them.
Can EQ8 calculate how much fabric I need?
Yes. EQ8 calculates yardage estimates for your quilt, including borders, based on the fabric width you select — and the estimates update automatically whenever you change the design. It can calculate for fat quarters as well.
Is EQ8 good for beginners?
Yes, with a little patience. Pre-designed Quick Quilt projects let beginners produce a design right away, and step-by-step lesson books such as EQ8 Lessons for Beginners walk new users through drawing blocks, importing fabrics, and printing patterns.
