Software Review: Quilt-Pro For Windows, Version 2.2

qpscreen.gif (37988 bytes) Quilt-Pro for Windows was introduced at the Houston Quilt Market in 1994 in response to what was widely felt by computing quilters to be a void in the market, the lack of a quilt design program that fully utilized the features of the Windows graphical desktop environment.

Developed by the husband and wife team of James Salamon and Miriam Neuringer of The Colony, Texas, Quilt-Pro almost immediately established itself as a major player in the market. The elegant, Windows-complaint interface, innovative quilt design methodology, and high degree of user configurability made it attractive to those who had left DOS behind and didn't want to return to it to do their quilt designing.

Quilt-Pro has undergone one major and several minor upgrades since its release, and remains the best of the full-featured Windows-based quilt design programs. It is generally ranked as second only to Electric Quilt 3 in richness of features, and many prefer its Windows interface to EQ's DOS-based design.

Quilt-Pro's clean interface is immediately evident when upon startup it displays its seven basic elements arranged nicely on the screen -- a drawing board, a familiar Windows menu bar, a set of Tools, a set of Patches (or shapes), a Fabric bar on the lower right, and a scrollable Color bar which runs along the bottom of the screen. As in most Windows applications, these elements can be moved around the screen, resized, or temporarily hidden from view.

When you open the program you are placed by default in the Draw Block mode. From this module you can immediately begin drawing blocks with the tools provided, or you may select a block from the program's block library, which contains about 1,000 traditional blocks and hundreds of fabric and border designs.

Although the Windows environment makes Quilt-Pro look familiar, the designers have departed significantly from the tradition of both drafting software and earlier quilt design programs in their drawing methodology. While these programs traditionally used the line as the basic unit to draw patches and blocks, Quilt-Pro draws or creates whole patches. If you are used to drawing with lines this can be a little difficult to adjust to, but once you become accustomed to it it provides a quick, simplified way to create your own traditional patchwork blocks, and a way for beginners to relate to the program's features in quilters' terms.

The Patches bar on the right side of the screen is the key to drawing the shapes that will eventually become your quilt blocks. It offers eleven basic patch shapes, along with three line selections. You simply select the one you want, place your cursor arrow at the point on the screen where you wish to begin, press the mouse button, and drag the shape until it is the size and in the position you desire. Another mouse-click "fixes" that patch in place and your cursor is freed up to draw another, or to manipulate (or "transform") that one with the variety of tools provided in the Tool box at the upper right. Straight line, arc, and bezier curve tools are also provided, primarily for use in drawing quilting stencils or applique.

A great boon to block design is the program's Patch Guidelines feature, which will place a template of your block (4-patch, 9-patch, etc.) on the screen as a guide to placing your patches in it. This makes placement of pieces extremely easy and accurate. You can easily zoom in and out on your design to work on detail or get a more distanced view.

Quilt-Pro's other mode is Quilt Layout, where you place blocks in a quilt setting. You can manipulate and color blocks in the layout mode, though this can sometimes be laborious if you want to try a variety of different quilt layouts by mixing and matching blocks. There are no shortcuts, for example, for laying out alternating blocks. They must be placed in one at a time.

The Quilt Layout mode will allow you to lay out as many as 400 blocks in straight or on-point settings. Sashing and multiple borders are possible, in a variety of designs.

One of the program's design awkwardnesses is that once you have entered the quilt layout mode it is not possible to return to the block design mode without saving and closing the quilt you are working on and opening up a new block. All the elements of a quilt -- the blocks, layouts, color schemes, and fabrics, are separate units in Quilt-Pro, and cannot be grouped together in a single file as can be done with Electric Quilt. This makes organizing projects and keeping their elements together difficult for the user.

Quilt-Pro's initial selection of fabrics and color palettes is not as large as some other programs', but is generous nevertheless and may be displayed in an almost infinite variation of colors. New fabrics may be scanned into your computer as bitmaps (or designed in Windows Paintbrush) and then incorporated into the fabric library, so no fabric design module is provided with the program. The company has also released

While not as glitzy as the manuals for some other programs, Quilt-Pro's documentation is clear and thorough, in a convenient spiral-bound format, and provides both tutorials and reference material on Quilt-Pro features. Online help is detailed (though not very context-sensitive), and contains mostly the same material that is in the manual.

A nice extra with Quilt-Pro is a library of 50 quilting stencils provided by The Stencil Company. These are included as part of the block library and can be overlaid on a quilt design and printed out to be traced on fabric. The program also includes a library of 70 paper foundation piecing patterns. Released separately are two CD-ROMs containing designer fabrics for use in the program.

Registered owners of Quilt-Pro receive regular newsletters with tips on using the program and updates of new products. Users may also submit blocks for inclusion in the company's block library updates.

Overall, despite its idiosyncrasies and some awkwardnesses, Quilt-Pro is probably the most intuitive and easily the most configurable quilt design program on the market. Its designers appear to be listening to and collaborating with their users and have a good reputation for responsiveness in their user support.

If you want to do Windows, as well as quilt design, Quilt-Pro is the program of choice.

For more program information and to download their demo program, visit their website at http://www.quiltpro.com

System Requirements:

386 processor (or higher)
4 MB Ram (8MB recommended)
Windows 3.0 (or higher)
DOS 5.0 or higher
Mouse or other pointing device
12 MB free disk space

Price:

$95 plus $5 shipping.

To Order:

Quilt-Pro Systems
P.O. Box 560692
The Colony, TX 75056

Telephone:

800 884-1511

Online representative:

Linda Breshears: almab@aol.com

VISA/Mastercard accepted

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