Technology Toys for a Renaissance Girl: iPad Apps for Virtual Quilting, Music, and Design Inspiration

Beth asked a great question about yesterday's post, wondering which app I use on my iPad to doodle quilting designs like this one:

Auditioning Quilting Possibilities on my iPad Mini 4

I realized that it's been awhile since I've posted about my favorite design tech toys, so today I'm going to give an overview of the iPad apps I'm using most frequently for my right brain creative endeavors.

Apple 7.9" iPad Mini 4,9.7" Regular iPad, and 12.9" iPad Pro 

Currently I'm using an iPad Mini 4, the one on the left in the photo above, which is small enough to carry in my handbag every day but really not ideal for design or for music performance.  I have ordered a 12" iPad Pro that will be delivered on Monday (finally!).  Keep in mind that all of these screen sizes indicate a diagonal measurement of the screen, the way TV sizes are advertised.  The 12.9" Pro model has a screen size that is approximately equivalent to an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper, yet it only weighs one and a half pounds.  That's much less than my 3-ring binders full of music for Christmas caroling or choral performances, and WAY less than the laptop computer that I currently lug around for client presentations.  The iPad Pro is designed to be more of a hybrid between a laptop computer and a tablet, and I'm looking forward to using it for both presenting to clients and for sketching designs on the fly.  I bought a new cover for it from my favorite luxury tech cover manufacturer, Piel Frama, and I chose black lizard-embossed calfskin because it's elegant and professional enough for my interior design meetings, yet from a distance it will resemble a regular black music folder:

Piel Frama 12.9" Frama Slim iPad Pro Case

As much as I might personally prefer crocodile-embossed red leather, my choral directors tend to favor a uniform look...  :-)

Apple Pencil Stylus

In conjunction with the Apple Pencil, which draws much more smoothly and "pen-like" than any other stylus I've tried, I'm looking forward to getting even more use out of my new iPad Pro for both interior design and quilting design.  When using an Apple Pencil, I'll be able to rest my hand on the iPad screen without my hand creating stray marks, and in my music app the use of an Apple Pencil will enable me to bring up the annotations menu immediately when the stylus touches the screen, so I can scribble notes in music scores quickly during rehearsals.  However, if you're only interested in the apps I'm using for quilting, know that they work just fine on all three iPad sizes, but the new Apple Pencil stylus is only compatible with the iPad Pro.  With the regular or the Mini, you would just need to use a different stylus.

So, which apps have me so jazzed up about the iPad to make me buy a newer, bigger model?  The app I use most frequently on my current iPad, besides email and web browsing, is Pinterest for design inspiration and for communicating with clients.  You can see all of my public Pinterest boards here.  I currently have over 12,00 images pinned to over 125 different boards.  I have boards for things like FMQ inspiration, Applique Blocks, or Dresden Plate quilts, so I can quickly find those images that caught my fancy months ago when I'm brainstorming for ideas on a specific type of quilt: 

Some of My Pinterest Quilting Boards

I've also got separate boards for Kitchens, Draperies, Decorative Tile, Lighting, and things like that for keeping track of all of the inspirational interior design eye candy out there on the web:

Some of My Interior Design Pinterest Boards

These boards can be very handy when I'm meeting with a design client and I want to show them different possibilities and get their feedback.  I can learn a new client's tastes and preferences a lot faster when they are reacting to visuals than just having them try to describe their style verbally.  When it comes to design, a picture truly is worth a thousand words! 

My next favorite design apps are the ones I use for sketches and doodling.  When I want to just practice doodling quilting motifs for developing muscle memory, I tend to prefer the Paper 53 app because I get reasonably decent, fluid lines even with a cheapo stylus or when drawing with my finger:

Quilt Doodling in Paper app by 53

But the app I used for trying out quilting designs on a photo of a completed quilt top is the Drawing Pad app by Murtha Design, a coloring app that I originally downloaded so my kids could play with it when they were younger. 

Drawing Pad app for iPad

This app includes an assortment of virtual mediums for coloring including pencils, crayons, charcoals, paints, markers, and stamps.  But the key feature for my quilting purposes is that you can easily import photos and use them as the background "paper" in the Drawing Pad app.  So I can take a photo of the quilt top on my design wall with the iPad itself, and then select it as my paper from my camera roll, and sketch out possible quilt designs right on top of the photo.  If I like it I can save it, and if not, I can quickly toss my scribbles and start again on a clean photo.  This is the app I used to doodle quilting ideas for my math quilt during last Sunday's sermon, using the quilt top photo as my "paper" background and a thin marker or crayon line to sketch out a quilting plan:

Quilt Design Sketched in Drawing Pad app with Quilt Top Photo Imported as "Paper"

I'm also using my iPad mini a great deal for reading, but now that I'm in my forties I'm finding that reading glasses are becoming more and more necessary for reading extensively without my eyes getting tired.  Yes, I can increase the font size on my iPad, but I'm looking forward to the larger screen for reading with or without my glasses anyway.  I use the free Kindle app to read digital editions of books on my iPad, and I am also a digital subscriber to The New York Times and I read the newspaper on my iPad using their app as well.

I've saved the best (for me, personally) for last.  The ForScore music app is pricey as far as apps go, at $9.99, but for musicians this app is the greatest thing since the Rolodex was replaced by the Contacts in your phone and your Day Planner was replaced by your Calendar app.  Seriously! 

Screen Shot of Bach St. John's Passion in ForScore app with Keyboard Active

A number of singers in the upcoming VOX St. John's Passion performances have been using the ForScore app on their iPads or Android tablets throughout rehearsals, and after watching them out of the corner of my eye for a couple of rehearsals I decided to give the app a try on my iPad mini.  Oh, how do I love thee?!!!

The entire score of Bach's St. John's Passion was provided to us as a PDF.  My church choir director has started using an online app where all of the music for both traditional and contemporary choirs are posted as PDFs that I can download, including the hymns.  The music for the Christmas caroling group I sing with is also available as PDFs that group members download, print, and lug around in a black 3-ring binder.  So now ALL of that music can live in the ForScore app on my iPad, with tags and labels so I can quickly find music I need for a specific group.  And I can create set lists for rehearsals, performances, and worship services that allows me to page continuously through all of the music in order on my iPad rather than fumbling around with a bunch of different books, octavos, and hymnals.

I can annotate my music to my heart's content, highlighting and using bold red and blue "ink" rather than the pencil I have to use on paper music, since I can easily erase any and all markings completely on the iPad app if needed.  I can white out cut sections of music in this app, delete entire cut pages, and duplicate pages so that those dreadful D.S. al Coda repeats don't send me flipping back and forth all over the place -- I can just page through continuously without having to go back and forth.  The app includes a pitch pipe, which will be fabulous for a cappella carol singing, a metronome, and best of all -- I can pull up a keyboard to play tricky intervals when I'm learning music, no matter where I am.  I used to have to work those sections out in front of my piano, but now I can work on learning music while I'm waiting in the carpool line, or during rehearsal without having to ask the director to play our part for us.  This is SO AWESOME!

The only drawback is that the screen size on the iPad mini is really too small for reading music notes or words accurately while singing, especially the German for the Bach movements that are sung at a fast tempo.  The regular 9.7" iPad would probably be acceptable, but the 12" iPad Pro screen is going to be AWESOME.  Cannot wait to try that out once the new tech toy arrives on Monday!

Meanwhile, there's some sewing to get done this weekend.  I have nothing to wear for the Bach concert next weekend but I have some fabric that I ordered from Emma One Sock, a fabulous Burda pattern, and a patient and talented seamstress for a mother who is willing to collaborate with me to ensure that the dress gets done in a timely fashion and I don't have to sing naked next weekend!  Stay tuned; if I have time I'll be blogging about the dress but it might not be until AFTER the concert has come and gone.

Happy weekend and happy Spring, everyone!

Short and Sweet: Pineapple Log Cabin Blocks and Apple iPhone 6 Plus

I am still working on the same projects, and no, nothing particularly exciting has been accomplished.  I finished another of my 17 3/4" paper pieced pineapple log cabin blocks:

So that's four down, thirty-two more to go.  I had to go buy some more neutral fabric prints to get through with the fourth block, not because I didn't have any more of the fabrics I used for the first three blocks, but because I was bored of those fabrics already.  Looking around my studio, you can see that I have chopped up LOTS of different fabrics into strips already:

See?  My Featherweight is completely surrounded by the blue fabric strips.  I just hope most of them make it into the quilt and don't end up as waste (or scrap bin replenishment).  I'm finding that I need more light/neutral fabrics than I originally anticipated because the neutral fabric strips are used on all four sides whereas the blues and greens are only used on two corners for each fabric.  I got some good suggestions in the comments from my last post about how to store and organize my fabric strips while this project is in progress, but so far I haven't implemented them.

In other news, I ordered a new iContraption last week but I haven't received it yet:

I ordered the Apple iPhone 6 Plus, shown on the right, to replace my iPhone 5s, shown on the left.  (Yes, I have heard about the iPhone 6 Plus supposedly bending when people shove it in their back pocket and sit on it.  If I was buying the phone with the intent of sitting on it, that would be a big concern...)  Consumer Reports tested a variety of smartphones for this issue and found that it takes 90 pounds of pressure to bend an iPhone 6 Plus:

As far as I'm concerned, resistance to bending under extreme pressure is not something I'm looking for in an iPhone (although it might be a concern to those who like to carry their phones in their back pockets).  I bought it to live in my purse, to hopefully take the place of the big and bulky iPad 2 when I'm out and about, and I almost never sit on my purse or put it in giant Consumer Reports phone smashing machines.  I'm more than happy to accept a slightly less rugged device in exchange for lightening the weight it adds to my handbag.

I was previously paying for a cellular data plan on the old iPhone as well as on the iPad, but the only time I was actually using the data for the phone was when I had left the iPad at home because it was too heavy.  I didn't like the redundancy of carrying and paying for data plans on two devices that do essentially the same thing, one of them a bit too small and the other one a lot too big.  I think the larger screen on the 6 Plus will be just big enough that I will be able to use it for checking emails, reading the newspaper, online shopping while waiting at red lights, and using Pinterest.  And of course, a new iPhone needs a new case (which presumably will also help to inhibit the ever-so-slight possibility of bending), which has also been ordered but that will probably take longer to arrive than the phone:

Leather iPhone 6 Plus Case in Brown Stingray from Piel Frama

I love Piel Frama leather tech covers.  They are handcrafted in Spain with a 30-day lead time, but totally worth the wait because they feel good in your hand, offer excellent protection, and last forever (or at least until I'm ready to upgrade to a newer device).

Well, I promised to keep it short and sweet with this post, so that's it for today.  Back to my pineapple log cabin blocks!  I'm linking up with Design Wall Monday at Judy's blog.