Adobe Illustrator for Quilt Designers: A Few Things To Start With

Adobe Illustrator: A Few Basics To Start With

As we get started, there are a few basics you will need to know before working with Adobe Illustrator. Things like how to create a new document and how to work with the a few tools in the tool bar. For some really useful video tutorials, visit the Adobe Illustrator Tutorial Page from Adobe. If you are not an Illustrator newbie and already know all this handy stuff, we'll be diving into creating blocks and things in the next tutorial.

Creating a New Document

Choose "file" from the top menu bar, then new.

Once you select "new" from the menu a new window will come up that lets you choose all sorts of options for your new document. Since we are working on things that will be printed (rather than on the web) choose "print" from the "new document profile" pull down menu. For all of these tutorials you will want to work in inches, so from the units pulldown choose "inches". Click "OK" to create the new document. There are lots of other things to change here, but these are the two biggies for this use.

A Few Handy Tools

The Adobe Ilustrator Tool Bar has a heap of really, really cool tools, but let's start with the basics:

• The selection tool which, well, let's you select things.
• The line tool for drawing lines
• The shape tool - the default is a square, but if you click the little black triangle in the corner there are other shapes too
• The resize tool to help out with making things bigger and smaller.
  

Work in Progress

I have been a busy bee this month and thought I would take a minute to share my progress on my current work in progress - working completely from my stash too! Sometimes it just takes a while to find the right home for certain fabrics, and with every new project it seems I end up with a huge pile of auditioned, but rejected, fabrics that need refolding. At least it's an excuse to play with my hoard of fabric. :) The working title for this one is Robin's Roost...

Adobe Illustrator 101 - Let's get started!

Now that the dust has settled down after Quilt Market, well sort of, let's get these Adobe Illustrator tutorials started! First things first, you'll need Adobe Illustrator. The nice folks at Adobe have a great thing going with their FREE 30-day trials. Fully functioning and certainly a great way to see if you like it or not. Download Adobe Illustrator. This is a HUGE download and will take a while, and the installation process, while straight forward, take a while too.

To follow along with my series of tutorials, you will need Adobe Illustrator. Even if you have an older version collecting dust because you just weren't sure what to do with it, break it out and install it. You should be able to do most everything with most past versions of Illustrator too, things may just look a little different to you than the screen shots I will be providing. If you have an older version of Illustrator and aren't sure if you want to upgrade, please stick with your current version. I have found that files created with the latest version are not very compatible with previous versions - mainly because there is just a bunch of cool new features in the new version that weren't available in the past. Features, that frankly as far as designing quilts go, you won't be touching much... :)

I will be posting the first tutorial in a couple of days, and at the end of that first tutorial, you will have designed your first simple quilt block! Woo-hoo!

Ok, so maybe today?

Popping my head in, and checking in from Houston here at the Quilt Market. We have been so busy working and talking and standing and talking some more to all the wonderful people here that I haven't had any time to go around and take pictures or anything. We even ran out of sales catalogs around 2:00 yesterday and had to resort to handing out business cards!

Well besides all that there are so many blog posts and tweets going around it will makes your head spin... :) They are doing a much better job than me!

Here are a few:
Catch up on the adventures of Pam Kitty Morning and Elizabeth over at Late Bloomer Quilts
The Fat Quarter Shop and their Jolly Jabber is packed with exciting news too.
And of course there is Moda Lissa - check out all the goings on over in Moda land! So beautiful... :)
There are so many - so make sure to check all your favorite quilty blogs to catch up on the fun!

Later gators! Off to the convention center after I grab yet another cup of coffee.

Quilt Market - We're here!

Mom and I have been in Houston since Thursday and have been busy as bees setting up the booth, getting our nails done and generally pretending we are on vacation before the madness totally sets in. All work and no play right? :)

I'll be tweeting throughout the day and hope to update the blog with pictures along the way. We are headed over to the convention center in just a few to pick up a latte and muffin for breakfast at Starbucks, and then to wander through the aisles to see what everybody is up to before we are tied to the booth for the day.

We are so excited to see everyone so if you're here, make sure to stop by booth #1458!