A Quilty Solid - app

A Quilty Solid is a mobile app designed for quilters, by a quilter, Steph Skardal, 2018 winner of Best of Show at QuiltCon. As a software engineer, Steph has developed a number of tools for visualising and matching colours that are brought together in the app. It allows you to match solid colours of quilters’ fabrics and threads, develop and store colour palettes, extract solid colours and palettes from an image, match fabric and thread colours to Pantone colours, and compare solid colours between commercial fabric ranges for your preferred match. More manufacturers products are being added with each release, but there is already a good range. A very handy tool for quilters that will become more useful as you become familiar with its features, and generously made freely available via the App Store and for Android.

 

How to use Instagram - an easy guide

There is a lot of quilting action on Instagram. The app is primarily a photo-sharing platform, so it lends itself to sharing finished quilts, works in progress, publishing flyers about events, designers and manufacturers, shops displaying new stock and sales, and forming online 'groups' who are working on similar projects, so you can see what others are doing.

Several of our members are active Instagram users, some are quietly watching from the sidelines.and some are interested but don't know what it's all about yet. We are happy to share our experience hands-on, but here is an easy guide from CheatSheet, that will help you get started, in the absence of a 15 year old who can be your personal tutor. It begins with links for downloading the app appropriate for your device, and takes you step-by-step through the easy process of becoming an active Instagram-er.

You can follow us on Instagram here, at Fairholme Quilters.

Technology meets quilting: Laura Kemshall on her Festival of Quilts winning quilt

Laura Kemshall's epic quilt 52 Degrees won the UK Quilters Guild Challenge at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham last weekend. It is difficult to appreciate online because of its size, and the curvature of its display stand, and the complex techniques used that do translate easily to online images.

Fortunately for those of us who may not ever get to see it 'in the cloth',  Laura Kemshall has posted a detailed blog revealing how she went about achieving this innovative and stunning piece of work. It's a lot to take in, but well worth the time to do so.

New Bernina Australia website launched

Bernina Australia has launched a new website: 

In WHAT'S NEW you'll find our OzNews, Events, Promotions, Awards and Site Updates.
EXPERIENCE is where you'll find projects, free downloads & information about sewing stars.

We're still at www.bernina.com.au, however, if you have previously bookmarked our old site you will need to delete the bookmark before accessing the new site.

• Bernina Australia on Facebook

Tips on photographing quilts at home

Here is a very useful post, from The Modern Quilt Guild, with good tips for photographing quilts at home, with the sort of camera that most of us are likely to have to hand.

It is written specifically to guide quilters submitting entries for the first QuiltCon event in Austin, Texas nest February, but will be useful for anyone wanting to maximise the quality of their quilt photos without access to a photographic studio and professional equipment.

This article from Australian Quilters gives tips for photographing quilts to highlight the quilting stitches, again using an ordinary (pocket) digital camera.

Cleaned your machine lately, or had it serviced?

Mined from other people's blogs:

This post from Bear Hugs All Round will discourage you from using compressed 'canned' air (or anything else to blow sewing machine lint out of sight (and into the inside of your machine), should you ever be tempted. The photos will have reaching for the lint brush ...

A Dog Named Banjo has an excellent series of tutorials on the basics of the Bernina 440 QE (Aurora), with very clear and detailed photos for some processes (cleaning, attaching the walking foot and using the BSR, for example).  Recipes such as vanilla extract made with a vodka base, and soft pretzels are just a nice extra, really.

An online challenge with a great prize!

To kick off your quilting year, here is an opportunity to win an excellent fabric prize, and you don't even have to sew anything - just play with virtual fabric, and put together a combination that you like. Just like starting a quilt - what fun! 

Laura at Quokka Quilts explains it all clearly, and several examples are already posted.  The deadline is 15th January ... so you might need to get onto it sooner rather than later, to enjoy maximum playing time.

Thanks to Sue C from the Fairholme Monday group for the link.

Speaking of apps ...

... (as we were),  there is as yet a small number of apps that come up on a search of the Apple App Store (part of iTunes) for 'quilting' - but that will change.

The Robert Kaufman Fabrics 'QuiltingCalc' app ('The Quilter's Little Helper') looks like a useful place to start.  It allows you to calculate fabric requirements for eight steps of the quilt-making process, including top fabric, batting, backing fabric and binding yardage, converting between imperial and metric measurements, and calculating setting triangle sizes. It is free for both iPhone and iPad from the App Store, so definitely worth a look if you use an honeod or iPad.  Preview here.

V and A quilts online and an exhibition app

You might recall that a very significant and well-received exhibition of quilts from 1700 to 2010 was  held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London last year.  Here is the V & A's page about quilting - lots to see and read (photos, videos, articles, online exhibitions), and  many interesting links, including this one to an iPhone/iPad app of the 1700-2010 exhibition, that gives a spoken commnetary, some background video and close-up views (one blogger noted that the close-ups were better than the view she had at the actual exhibition, given the crowds it attracted, and the limited time for viewing it).