Quilting Design with a Tablet and Quilt Progress

My Husband and I recently celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary, and as a gift he bought me a Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet to help me create my quilting plans.  If you are a machine quilter you may have heard of this neat gizmo.  I believe it was originally intended as a graphic design tool, but quilters are incredibly good and finding new and creative ways to do things.I first learned about using one of these tablets from Carla Barrett from Feathered Fibers, but recently the idea has really seemed to catch on.

Using a graphic design tool like the tablet really appealed to me as I do have some experience using Paint Shop Pro and other graphic design software.  Paint Shop Pro is almost like a paint program but with very advanced features - it would allow you to create layers with different elements that can be added or deleted as you go - or merged into one solid graphic.  I used to use this for amateur website design just for fun, but it has been years since I had the program and I had been really looking for something inexpensive that would aid me in my quilting design.  The Bamboo tablet came with a Corel drawing program that works specifically with the tablet - it is wonderful!

The tablet itself is really a drawing space - it comes with a pen that is used with the tablet and you can draw on a blank canvas or directly onto pictures.  This is amazing for someone like me so that I can actually draw a quilting design out onto a photo of your quilt to get an idea of what the quilting will look like.  Before, I was using paint with my computer mouse.  Having the tablet and pen cuts the drawing time down immensely, and also the software that came with it allows me the layers I had wanted so I can add and delete elements as I choose without starting a whole new session.

Loads of fun!  I love this little gadget for thinking up new designs and testing out quilting plans.  I used it recently to work up a plan for my "show" quilt.  Oh I cannot wait to share!!  This is the most intense quilting I will have done to date and I cannot wait to get started.

I have made a significant dent in the applique for my quilt - though the real kicker is the paper piecing that I haven't even touched yet.  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  Still contemplating whether I will hand applique these or machine applique these down.  I like hand applique - but I have a LOT of work left to do.

So that's my show and share for today!  Hope everyone is doing well out there in blogland!  :)