I received an iPod Touch for Mother’s Day a few years ago, and it has been one of my favorite presents ever. Besides all the standard apps that come with it – address book, calendar, calculator, and the multitude of games I’ve acquired, I have a handful of apps that are very handy in my quilting life. (Knitting too, but that’s another post).
I’m often answering questions about how much fabric someone needs for backing, borders, binding, or sashing. This app gives me those answers. I can input block size, sashing width, border width, and other parameters and get instant answers to the amount of fabric needed for these components. This apps supports multiple construction methods: straight and mitered borders, pieced or not pieced borders, and more.
While this app may not be able to answer every fabric amount need, it certainly handles quite a few of the major ones. It is well worth adding to your collection of apps – and it’s free!
There are two companion apps, also by Mary Kay Podlecki, which help to fill in the gaps of calculating fabric needs: BlockFab and QuiltRef.
BlockFab helps you calculate fabric needs for some basic blocks and commonly used patches. You can also see layouts and color combinations. I’m getting ready to work on a log cabin quilt, and this program will tell me the amount of fabric I need based on the number of total blocks and the block size. It will also give me basic cutting instructions.
QuiltRef provides common bed and quilt sizes, making it ideal for not only quilters, but quilt collectors as well. There are also fraction to decimal conversions, as well as, conversions between inches, yards, and centimeters. Quilters will appreciate the ability to calculate setting triangles for when they set their quilt blocks “on point.”
Both of these apps are also free, but not all apps are. Another fabulous app that I use is Quick & Easy Quilt Block Tool from C&T Publishing. This app is $3.99 and worth every penny. It provides 102 blocks in 5 different sizes with simple cutting charts. The 102 blocks are organized alphabetically, but can also be searched based on grid (2×2, 3×3, 4×4, etc.). Any block can be added to your favorites for quick reference.
Do you have any favorite quilting or sewing apps? Leave a comment and tell us what you like about it!