Before we get started with the review, check out the slideshow below–selected project images from Amy Butler’s new Softwares CD, developed in partnership with Electric Quilt Company.
Did that get your attention? This new CD contains 22 (plus a number of bonus items) projects that we’ve come to expect from Amy Butler–beautiful, classy quilting, sewing and home decorating projects that are well designed and feature impeccably coordinated fabrics. Really, each one of them you could make write out of the box (or disk) as designed by Amy–and that would be a great value for only $29.95. But, the real thing that makes Softwares shine is that you can completely customize nearly all of the projects (the simple bag and pillow patterns excepted)–you get to play with fabric and design right on your computer screen. Since there has been a lot of curiosity about this new software, I took a few screen shots of Softwares “in action,” so you can see for yourself how Softwares works, and what it is capable of–I think you’ll be impressed.
The easiest, most basic function in Softwares is the ability to quickly and easily adjust the size of your project. In this screen shot, I adjusted a quilt pattern from a lap quilt size to extremely large (over 150 inches)–you then have the choice between keep the blocks the original size and adding additional blocks or simply enlarging your blocks. The software does all the math and creates the yardage chart for you.
You can also easily experiment with different borders by selecting, as I did here, from a number of styles available in the dropdown menu. For me, it was a lot of fun seeing how radically different border styles and sizes changed the quilt.
The fun really gets going when you start playing with the quilt blocks. Each of the designs comes with many variations of blocks built into that design. So with a little bit of experimentation, you can create a completely new look. In this screenshot, I’ve taken the Sunset Throw design and swapped out different blocks and rotated them.
Another fun feature of Softwares is that all of Amy Butler’s gorgeous fabrics are loaded as swatches, as is an extensive palette of solids, so you can completely plan the colors and fabrics for your project. This is something that’s extremely useful as a planning tool–I found myself getting very engrossed in thinking about combing different colors and different sized prints. You can see from the screen shots (I played with the fabrics for three different projects) how many various options you have for planning your fabrics.
There are a couple of other really interesting design functions included in the CD as well. The first is the Embellishment tab, which lets you select from pretty much every thread color imaginable. It’s another thing that really allows you to play with the details of your design and test what will create the desired effect. The other thing that this screen shot is showing you is the handy note card feature, that saves an image of your design and lets you make notes about the project. It’s a useful function, that I could definitely see this being very useful if you get into creating a lot of designs with Softwares.
All-in-all, Softwares is a great value, even if you just make the projects as the come on the CD. For less than $30, you get more than 20 beautiful Amy Butler patterns. However, it’s really the added features that intrigue me the most–the ability to design and plan a project with a light-weight version of Electric Quilt 6, using inspiring Amy Butler fabrics. In order to get the most out of Softwares, you would be well-served to spend some time getting used to the way the program works, so you get really start working with your own interpretations of Amy’s designs.
There are also a couple of hidden gems in Amy’s sewing glossary and in the “inspiration” section of CD as well. The glossary has clear, easy-to-understand explanations of all the sewing techniques you’ll use for the projects on the CD. And I got lost (in a good way) clicking through the inspiration images–they made me want to break out the sewing machine and get started on a project right away.
Softwares is only available for Windows XP and Vista; if you have a Macintosh operating system you would need to run Windows using Parallels or another or another virtualization softwareif you want to use Softwares; it is not compatible with Linux. (Read the technical specifications here.) It is fully compatibile with EQ 6, if you’re already using the Electric Quilt Comany’s software.
