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Welcome to the Pre-Design corner of this forum


Loes

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Hi everyone,

A big welcome to all of you. This part of the APQS forum will be dedicated to (future) users of the Pre-Design drawing software.

If you have any questions about the program I'll be happy to answer them. I do my best to post tips and tricks too: how to draw and print your own pantos from PreDesign, but also tips how to draw for CompuQuilter.

I am very proud that Pre-Design can be purchased at APQS soon.

Again, welcome. In your dreams you can create your own quilting patterns..... soon you will be drawing for real!

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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........*heavily waving with her arms*:D

Nice to see you here (again)!

A wonderful idea to open this special space for Pre-Design!

I love your program and I´ve played already a little bit .....

Not perfect....still working on it;)

Best wishes from Germany to the Netherlands....hope to meet you both soon again!;)

Claudia Pfeil

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Hi Sue, Hi Claudia!

Nice to see you too.

We'll meet soon for sure: in October we will be demoing Pre-Design in Waalre (NL) and in November I come back to your APQS Open House in Krefeld (for demos, but also to look again at your award winning swarovski quilt!!).

Hopefully you will have Lenni in your store then :)

I have just submitted my class proposal to the MQS 2008 in Kansas: all about how to get inspired, how to "see" designs and how to draw quilting patterns.

So, see you soon!

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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Hi Mary Beth,

You'll love Pre-Design even if you don't have a computerized quilting system :) You can draw your own pantos and print them at actual size from Pre-Design. Take a look at a slide show on page: http://quilters.pre-design.eu/apqs_longarm1.htm'>http://quilters.pre-design.eu/apqs_longarm1.htm

Drawing in Pre-Design is very easy: it really is just taking a tool, clicking from point to point and double click to finish a line. Selecting and moving points to perfect the lines. And selecting and copying, pasting, mirroring and flipping is easy too.

You can draw from scratch or open a background image to trace. (In the slide show I traced a freemotion motif I made when I was playing with a millennium on a show.)

There's a free trial version of Pre-Design, which is fully functional for 21 days.

Creating your own pantos is really fun: no searching for special patterns anymore, because you just create them yourself: scan a piece of fabric of the quilt and trace a motif for a matching quilt pattern.

Have fun,

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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Yes!

You can print in true size. So you can draw your own blocks (select all, right click and choose size: set it to the desired size) then print. Or draw paper piecing blocks and print on special foundation paper to sew the pieces right on that material. Or print large quilting blocks and designs on that special Golden Threads quilting paper. That paper can then be pinned on the quilt and you can sew right over it. Paper can be thorn away very easily without distorting the stiches.

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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Price is US$ 124 (EURO 109). The sweet folks at APQS are working hard on a new look and feel of apqs.com and the Pre-Design information should be on it in 10 days or so.

In the meantime you can go ahead and download the trial version from:

http://quilters.pre-design.eu (button Free Trial). It is fully functional, and inludes the User Guide, which can be opened via menu Help > Help (PDF).

Be sure to check out the helpful screenshots on page: http://quilters.pre-design.eu/screenshots.htm

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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Letter size/A4 is suitable for pantos with a height of 10 - 11 inch, which is fine in most cases. Length of the panto will automatically be divided over several pages, which are numbered. You can tape those together. If your printer supports banner paper, you don't have to tape the pages together.

Tip: while taping pages together I always use little post-it notes to hold the pieces in place on the table. Hmm, hard to explain but if you take the time to look at a little demo on page: http://www.pre-design.eu/sewingpatterns02.htm you'll know what I mean

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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Originally posted by JoAnnHoffman

Pre-Design is fun and easy.

Will it be able to format for all makes of machines?

JoAnn, I'm not sure what you mean by this. When using the Pre-Design software, you are able to save the drawing in several different formats. For digitizing you would save it as a dxf and then bring it into the conversion program. All the computerized systems, as far as I know, take the dxf file and then convert it to whatever they need- Statler is qli, CompuQuilter is cmd, and Intelliquilter is something else- I don't know what it is. :(

If you want to print out the design, it doesn't really matter what system you have because you will be printing on paper.

Also, if you use this program for embroidery, there are several formats you can save it in for your particular system. I believe the program was originally created with the Brother PE-Design software in mind, but over the years Loes has supplied export formats for other systems such as Viking, Husquevana (sp.) etc.

There is now a module in the software that lets you create patterns to size for clothing - Loes please correct me if I'm not explaining this correctly.:o

I hope this explains the versatility of this easy-to-use program;)

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Originally posted by JoAnnHoffman

Pre-Design is fun and easy.

Will it be able to format for all makes of machines?

Joann,

In addition to Sue's excellent reply about the exported DXF format here are some tips.

Pre-Design's DXF can be read directly by the following programs:

CompuQuilter via the program part "DXFtoCQ.exe" Open the DXF there and save as cmd.

You will see that the DXF exported from Pre-Design has a lot of points: the drawing has a high resolution. Don't delete those points!!! More is better and gets smoother lines!

IntelliQuilter: you can load the DXF exported from Pre-Design directly in IntelliQuilter (Pattern folder on the USB stick): if the design doesn't look smooth in the IQ tablet, then go back to Pre-Design and resize the design: make it larger and export to DXF again. It will have a higher resolution (more points) and this will make the lines smoother. The final quilt design size is set in IntelliQuilter.

You can also load the DXF into the IQ conversion program and save as IQL if you like (to share or sell designs).

Tip for Statler Stitcher: The DXF exported from Pre-Design cannot be read directly by Statler - you will have to open it in AutoSketch first, then Select All and convert to Polylines. Then add First and Last commands. Save again as R2D2 DXF.

See slide show http://quilters.pre-design.eu/autosketch.htm'>http://quilters.pre-design.eu/autosketch.htm

Hope this helps,

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Janiece,

No, no no, please do NOT thin the design!!

Patterns made in Pre-Design have a high resolution: that means that the Pre-Design patterns have a lot of points.

People abusively think that this is not good, but in fact it is very good! More points means smoother lines. So please do not thin the lines. Thinning the lines could be done in the CompuQuilter program: it reduces the number of points. But when you do that, the lines get edgier, so please do NOT do that :)

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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Oh, forgot to mention: take a look at the first 4 demo slideshows on page:

http://quilters.pre-design.eu/screenshots.htm'>http://quilters.pre-design.eu/screenshots.htm

The slide shows only take a few minutes and in fact that is pretty much the learning curve of the Pre-Design program. Then you will have an idea how to use Pre-Design for CompuQuilter.

Hope this helps.

Loes

http://quilters.pre-design.eu

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