Designing a Quilt

I’m designing another quilt I’ve been obsessed with when not working on Halloween…I want to give you a sneak peek.

My plan is to do all my favorite flower and starburst-shaped blocks and make them into a sampler quilt. I found a stripe fabric with colorful flowers that is my inspiration and color scheme. (I forgot to take a picture, but you’ll see it later) The patterns are assembled from all my favorite magazine projects. Things I’ve wanted to try, but not necessarily do a whole quilt of…The first, pink flower, is from Edita Sytar, who spoke at our guild meeting a few months ago. (I totally loved her!!) The next New York Beauty was in a Fons & Porter magazine. I’ll have to look up the designers for the rest of them and tell you later.

This next one I’m putting together with needle-turn appliqué, here is the outer ring. There will be a similar inner ring next. I wanted to tell you that I’ve realized how nice it is to have the right tools for needle-turn appliqué. I’m using a 50 wt. machine embroidery thread, so it’s really thin and practically disappears into the appliqué fabric. The needle is a #12 straw, also very thin and fine, so it just glides right through! Appliqué pins hold everything in place without catching the thread as you bring it around. I learned about these tips in a class by Angela Lawrence at Creekside Quilting in West Des Moines. She’s a brilliant appliquér!

That’s all for now, until I get into the studio again this weekend. Usually during the week I can only dream about quilting time, like I’m doing right now! But I really want to know, how do other quilters go about designing quilts? Do you have a whole plan before you start? I started with the blocks and now have been sketching out how to put them together into a quilt. It’s forming itself as I make the blocks. I started sketching some designs for the whole quilt, but have kept making blocks as I’m also deciding on the setting for them. Would you have drawn up the whole thing? Would you wait until you had all the blocks done to put them on a design wall and move them around?? If you’re up for a discussion, I’d love to hear about your process.