The Electric Quilt Company, 1997
202 Pages, Spiral bound Paperback, with floppy disk $23.95
While
some of us sit around grousing about the limitations of this quilt design program or that
one, declaring the glass half-empty, Barb Vlack fires up her computer and proves beyond a
shadow of a doubt that the glass overfloweth!Too Much Fun! is a workbook for users of Electric Quilt 3 and BlockBase software who want to squeeze the last ounce of creativity out of the programs. Beyond that it is quite an amazing thing -- a computer book that makes good reading. It's witty, breezy, and full of inside dope about how to get the most out of these popular programs.
Divided into sixteen chapters with titles like "Can You Lend Me a Quarter?", "Exposing Your Backside," and "Pickles for the Bride," (which Barb quickly explains is not "about a bride who is in a 'family way.'"), the book presents step-by-step instructions for the creation of dozens of sophisticated quilt designs.
Step-by-step lessons can be the most deadly of all forms of literature, but Barb's irrepressible sense of humor and enthusiasm for the software makes you breathless for the next step, the next wondrous thing you can make appear on your computer screen.
The writing is supported by superb graphic design, with lots of screen shots, illustrations, and tip boxes that chase away the gray. Each chapter also contains a summary box at the end giving a quick review of the techniques presented.
Supplementing the book is a wonderful floppy disk of the project files that are described in the book along with a fistful of new fabric files inspired by Kaffe Fassett. The disk will install these new projects automatically into your EQ project library and you can view in living color the quilts that are presented only in black and white in the book.
If you're an EQ user and think you have exhausted the program's possibilities, you need this book. And it's not too difficult for a beginner, either. By going through the lessons you will become an expert at using the program, and won't even realize you were learning until afterwards, because it was so much fun.