This is the modern age of quilting, yo! We love blogging, sharing on Instagram, and don’t forget fabric shopping online! But there are also techy stuff to help you actually quilt! And while I love my Electric Quilt 7, these are three free quilt technology resources that anyone can use!
I love Anne’s Palette Builder for choosing colour palette inspiration, matching Kona colours, and now it will even do Aurifil thread too!! It was this piece of technology that was used to help choose the Kona colours for inspiration for the Lala Salama 100 Quilts For Kenya project.
Robert Kaufmann Quilting Calculator
Hate doing the math to work out how much binding to cut? Yep, me too. And the whole piecing and pressing of the binding too, but that’s beside the point today. This app is available on Android, Apple and Google and will also help work out borders, batting, backing, and even conversions between inches and centimetres.
PowerPoint
If you’re making patterns or tutorials, chances are you need some images to show how to do each step. Sometimes you might use photos, other times it can be easier to use a diagram or illustration. I don’t have anything fancy to do this, I just use PowerPoint! Now, I realise not everyone has PowerPoint, but you can use any program that creates the basic shapes you need, as well as arrows and being able to change the colour or border colours. All Microsoft Office programs can do this.
What are your favourite quilty technologies?!
Linden Vine says
I LOVE the Quilting Calculator! It’s a great tool for figuring out if you’ve got enough fabric left for what you want to do (the answer in my case is inevitably no). I’ve only just found about the Palette Bulider and I’m looking forward to using it.
Hilary says
I love Palette Builder and the Robert Kaufman app! I’ve never thought about using Power Point to make diagrams!
Georgi Sears says
Thanks so much for posting about the Palette Builder! What a great resource ~ can’t wait to use it! I’ve already got the Robert Kaufman app. 🙂 It’s great to have as well!
Cindy says
Thanks so much for the heads up on Palette Builder. What an awesome tool.