Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I bought this a year after purchasing my EQ6 software package because of the 12 free monthly lessons that Electric Quilt has on its website for owners of Kaleidoscope Collection. I was intrigued by the idea of having 500 kaleidoscope blocks to work with as starting points for my quilts, and also by some of the things that the Electric Quilt website said could be done to the blocks to redesign and arrange them. I have all three of Paula Nadelstern's books (Kaleidoscopes and Quilts, Paula Nadelstern's Kaleidoscope Quilts: An Artist's Journey Continues, and Snowflakes & Quilts). These explain the design concepts behind her beautiful kaleidoscope quilts and I was eager to try my hand at designing quilts with the types of fabrics that she uses, preferably without a lot of cutting into them until I could see the whole quilt design. (According to Nadelstern, successful kaleidoscope quilt designing comes about as a result of the designer's interaction with the fabrics rather than necessarily increasing the level of complexity in the polygon blocks, although she has made many quilts that have very complex blocks with many pieces in them.) So, would having the 500 kaleidoscope blocks contained in this collection and the twelve lessons on the Electric Quilt website be enough for me to successfully design my quilts?
The Kaleidoscope Collection's blocks are designed with the Easy Draw/Patch Draw tool, EQ6's most advanced drawing tool, and are painted with solid colors. In addition to this, each block has a separate coloring that shows value and contrast, which helps considerably when choosing fabrics.
There's also two features from EQ6 that are useful with designing kaleidoscope blocks, fussy cutting and rotating. These are key to the ability to design a kaleidoscope block that displays the fabric image in the triangular configuration that we see when we look in a kaleidoscope. You can work with already designed blocks and color them with fabrics that you then fussy cut to arrange within the block. This saves fabric because you are not cutting into it until your design is complete. Electric Quilt also allows you to rotate fabric within a block, which is useful if you work with directional patterns. Another thing to like about EQ6 and Kaleidoscope Collection is that you can modify the blocks and save them as new, so new blocks are easily designed. The Electric Quilt website does give good instructions for designing a block from nothing if you are inclined to do that, but its really not necessary with these tools, so you can get right down to the business of working with the fabric. These are the plus side of the product. Within a couple hours I had modified and colored several blocks and mounted them in an irregular quilt layout.
On the minus side, this is not an inexpensive program because you have to invest in Electric Quilt, whose most recent versions are quite pricey. Then you need the Kaleidoscope Collection as well. But if you are interested in a design tool that lets you see the big picture before you cut the fabric, and gives you templates and foundations as well, this is the package to purchase. Highly recommended for quilters. Could also be used by polymer clay and tile artists or woodworkers.
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Add-on for Electric Quilt 5 (EQ5) or Electric Quilt 6 (EQ6). This CD includes over 500 kaleidoscope style foundation blocks. Huge variety of styles: stars, compasses, pinwheels, flowers, and more. Easy-to-sew, print any size, these blocks are ready to recolor and set into layouts. Enough blocks for hundreds of projects! Requires EQ5 or EQ6. Made in USA.
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