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Align to the Current Needle Location

Owners who have had IQ prior to 2/2/09 are familiar with IQ asking you to move the needle to the upper left corner of the block when setting up a new quilt (panto or block design). The 2/2/09 IQ release changes how alignment occurs. The following describes the new procedure, from Zoltan, posted to the IQ Yahoo list:

After you entered the width and height of the quilt, instead of the "Move the needle to the upper left corner" message, you get the Modify Block screen. You can see that the upper left corner of the block is aligned with the crosshairs, which means that the block is automatically placed with its corner at the current needle location.

Touch the button with the needle symbol. A circle will appear at the upper left corner, indicating that the block is snapped to the needle. Move the needle to the desired location, then touch the needle symbol again. The circle disappears, and the block is placed where you wanted it.

This way of block alignment gives us a more flexible block placement. Just move the needle close to any snap point (green square) of the block before touching the needle symbol button. The needle will grab the snap point and you can move it to the desired position. You can even grab the center of the block and align it that way.

Note that this dragging feature exists on all the Modify screens, so you can grab and move patterns the same way. If you use this feature with no-sew or clipping blocks, you can immediately preview what parts of the pattern will be clipped.