Quilter's Club of America and Fons and Porter have released a new app that helps you find quilt shops based on your location.
I've tested it out around home and when I was on vacation last week and I love it. I used to spend time researching quilt shops on the Internet before going on vacation. I'd bring detailed notes with me about their hours, locations and directions from my hotel to the quilt shop. Now I can find out all that information on my phone.
Here's how the app works:
In theory, the app senses your location using GPS technology. I say "in theory" because the feature has never worked on my phone. But you can search by city and state or zip code as well, which is what I use.
The app then takes you to a map of the area with the quilt shops highlighted with a dot. When you touch the dot, the name, location and phone number appears. You can also view the quilt shops in a list organized by distance from your location.
There are a few bugs in the app besides the GPS sensor not working properly on my Andriod phone. Normally you can call a telephone number listed in an app or online just by touching it, but this app reads it as a web page and you get an error message. Also, you're not able to get directions from your current location to the quilt shop you want to go to within the app, but you can follow the map in the app the old fashioned way. Finally, while more than 2,500 quilt shops are listed with the app, not every quilt shop in the US is in the system. So far I've found two that are not in the areas I've visited.
But bugs aside, this is a great app for the traveling quilter and it's free. So make sure to download it before your next trip.
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