V & A Quilts iPhone App

Start Up Screen

This one cost me $2.99. Part of me feels pleased with the investment, part of me feels ripped off. Let’s start with the ripped off part.

Quilts 1700-2010 is a guide to an exhibition held at the Victoria & Albert Museum. It seems to be the didactic audio guide repurposed. The enterprising makers probably thought: “Let’s get some extra money by selling this content to quilting tragics as an iPhone app.” Fair enough, but if you want to make money off us iPhone owning quilting tragics not able to visit the V & A without a 24 hour plane ride, maybe at least edit out the voice over references to the next panel, just to pretend you know we’re not really at the exhibition.

Looks like Video, actually mostly Audio.

This app is collection of audios dressed as videos which show a still picture of the quilt being discussed with an earnest but descriptive voice-over and some curatorial comments. It drove me nuts that I couldn’t zoom in to see the detail during the video playback, but for some quilts there was a separate menu item for a picture of the quilt that you could pinch on to zoom. Too bad the resolution wasn’t better in the photos. The tone and content of the voice-overs for these photo elements sounded condescending to my adult ears, along the lines of, “Now zoom in and see how many different animals YOU can see.” Remember, I’m a quilting tragic, so I actually give a damn about this stuff.

Now for the good bit. I learned about a fascinating piece of history, thanks to this app. The Rajah Quilt which was made by convict women being transported to Tasmania, or Van Diemen’s Land as it was then. This group of prostitutes, thieves and other criminals was shipped off to Australia along with a couple of pounds of fabric and bucketloads of thread, a gift from British Ladies Society for the Reformation of Female Prisoners. It was either to help them pass the time on the long journey to Australia or because of a Victorian notion of the redemptive power of work, or maybe both.

Whatever the thinking behind the gift of the materials, the women of the convict ship Rajah made a beautiful medallion quilt. It’s apparently so delicate and so valuable that it’s only placed on exhibit once a year. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t heard of it before buying this app.

I’m glad I got to hear the story of The Rajah Quilt. That alone is worth $2.99.

Have a iPhone or iPod Touch? Read my review of the Block Tool App. It’s a good buy.

Churn Dash Pot Holder

Churn Dash Pot Holder

After saying I wasn’t interested in making pot holders, I wanted to have a go at a half square triangle on a practice piece before I start my star cot quilt or my carpenter’s wheel.

I don’t have much left over fabric from the cutting I have done so far for the star cot quilt so if I get something wrong starting afresh might not be an option.

There’s something about the churn dash that appeals to me – probably its boldness, combined with being a traditional block design.

I had a rummage in my shoe box of scraps and grabbed a couple of fabrics from the stash and made a 9 inch block using the measurements in the Block Tool iPhone app that I reviewed a few days ago. It worked perfectly and I am now convinced that the Block Tool app was a real good buy, and a bargain, too.

The pot holder is filled with a double layer of cotton batting, made from scraps that I zig-zagged together, making sure that the join was vertical on one layer and horizontal on the next. I stitched the quilt block to the backing along three edges, like a pillowcase and then inserted the batting, which I’d cut exactly to size. Then I slip stitched the opening by hand (hate that part). To finish I ran a quarter inch seam around the perimeter and stitched in the ditch around the central square. I wasn’t keeping an eye on the time but it probably took me an hour to do.

This pot holder will be a gift and I can think of easily half a dozen people who would also like to have one.

iPhone Quilting App: Block Tool

Block Tool App: Favorites Screen Shot

I just downloaded a kind of fun quilt-related iPhone app called Block Tool.

It’s published by C & T Publishing and appears to be their Quick & Easy Quilt Block Tool in a digital format.

They have the tool for sale on their web site at $16.95 and this app was only $4.99, which seems like a good deal for a pretty useful tool. From what I can tell the app appears to be a complete replication of the physical quilt block tool though I did see a reference in the app to something on page 109. There is no page 109 in the app.

Good on C & T Publishing for monetising their content in another way and at a reasonable price.

Being an iPhone app it’s portable. The content is good and you get dimensions for each of five different block sizes at a touch.

The user interface could be better. In particular the next and back navigation elements to move between block types are not very attractive and are placed too close to the selectors for the different block sizes. This could have been implemented much more elegantly with a swipe gesture.

A feature I really like is the ability to save blocks to your favourites, so you can quickly scan the subset of blocks that you feel might work for your next project.

Block Tool App: Ohio Star Screen Shot

My rating: recommended as it can help you with visualisation and measurements, even when you’re on the move.