Page 177 - DCAP109_GRAPHIC_TOOLS

Graphic Tools

Notes The combination of new wide-format, specialized printers from companies like Mimaki
and the rapid advancement of computer processing power made it possible for quilt
designers like Barbara Webster to print high-resolution photographic images in vivid
color on 100% cotton fabric.
“I remember casually watching somebody over the shoulder as they were playing with
CorelDRAW a few years ago,” says Barbara. “They inserted photos into different shapes,
like squares and triangles, and flipped them around and manipulated them with such
remarkable ease. I stopped dead in my tracks and I knew that this would enable me to
create exactly the quilts I could see inside my head.”

Barbara bought a copy of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite the next day and started to create her
own quilt designs immediately. She typically starts by taking photos of nature scenes
with her 5 mega-pixel digital camera Nikon Coolpix 5700. After importing the image files
into CorelDRAW, she starts to place the images in different patterns to see if she can come
up with an interesting composition.”
DRAW has some amazing features I use every day. They save me hours, she explains over
the phone. The first one is PowerClip, I just love how easy it is to insert an image into a
shape and position it exactly where I want. Another feature is Snap To Object. I could try
to line up all the hundreds of shapes in my quilt designs by hand, but it would take forever
and it wouldn’t be nearly as accurate.
Some quilt designers use special quilt-making software like Electric Quilter and Quilt Pro,
but according to Barbara Webster, many professional quilt designers use CorelDRAW.
“There’s no comparison in my mind,” says Barbara.”You can’t really use photos in those
other applications. The preview window is tiny, making it very hard to get an idea of what
the final quilt will look like. They’re just not very user-friendly if you want to use photos.
The only advantage is that they calculate yardage automatically, but I don’t really need
that feature anyway. CorelDRAW not only saves me a lot of time, it actually helps me
come up with the designs. It’s like having a design partner.”

Once she has created her design in CorelDRAW, she exports her files as 300 dpi TIFFs and
burns them on a CD. The CD is then sent to a friend who owns a large format Mimaki ink-
jet printer. This specialty printer is designed to handle thicker fabrics in wide formats –she
can print images up to 55" wide and 3 yards long! Says Barbara: “You can actually print
longer than 3 yards. We have discovered, however, that 3 yards is all that will fit reasonably
well into the steamer; so we limit the runs to 3 yards.”
“I prefer to use images I’ve taken myself, because I really need high-quality, high resolution
images in order to get a good result,” says Barbara. “Every single shape in my quilts
contains a 300 dpi TIFF image. My quilt ‘Spring in the Smokies’ for instance, consists of
over 500 triangles. The final DRAW file was over 1.8 GB in size – I had to buy a new DVD-
burner to back it up!”

Barbara Webster fits the profile of a dedicated quilter pretty well. (According to a 2003
study, 99% of quilters in the US are women.) A typical quilter seems to be a well-educated
woman in her fifties who has more than 12 years quilting experience and a higher than-
average household income.
Barbara was recently commissioned to create a quilt for the Holy Cross Hospital in Silver
Spring, Maryland. Her 69"x54" quilt “Approaching Summer” is based on photos she took
at the nearby Brookside Gardensand machine quilted by her friend and colleague Heather
Rogers.
Contd...

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