Jackie54

Does anyone have trouble with reading a quilt pattern? Sometimes I think Iam stupid. I find a pattern, looks great, buy it, and for what ever reason , I dont understand it. Is there an easy way of understanding these things. I know they are not all hard but my brain dont want to understand it. Can anyone help me in understand this? Please........... :roll: :roll:
Any help is welcomed.

amma

Some are more well written and user friendly than others...
If we can help with something specific, can you provide more information :D:D:D

the casual quilter

You are not stupid at all. This is something we all struggle with, depending on how well the pattern creator was on writing the instructions. I just pitched out a pattern book by a couple of well known quilt authors because the instructions were so miserable that I wouldn't even inflict the book on Goodwill or ARC.

JCquilts

Sure, lots of help here. Can you be more specific about what is confusing you?

Most patterns start with cutting instructions. Each fabric will have the pieces required for the entire quilt.

Next should be any technique instructions that might be used in the construction.

Then you should see seperate construction directions for each block.

Last you should see the layout and construction for the entire quilt.

bj

I have a lot of trouble sometimes reading the patterns. I mostly have to have a picture to look at to make sense of them.

scraphq

If you can look at the picture at the same time that you are reading the instructions, it helps to understand the pattern. You can then visualize where the cut pieces belong. Hope that helps.

blueangel

I have trouble sometime. Not always clear.

Jackie54

Thanks everyone, my pattern is Joesph's Pinwheel by fons& porter. I know its not a hard pattern, but I make it hard.It is in this months issuse book from Fons& Porter. I think alot of it is, because I dont use their choice of material, so when it tells me to say like go with blue poka dot material cut 4 7/8 wide strip, from strip cut 2 4 7/8 squares. Cut squares in half diagonally to make 4 half square. Now am I makeing a mountain out of a nothing.If you have the issue of the book it is on page 62.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Fabaddict

I rarely if ever follow directions as written. I prefer to make one block to see if I am going to like the pattern, my choice of fabrics, sizes etd.

jmabby

For me it took 3-4 quilts before I felt comfortable reading them. This is what I do on paper
1) Make a copy of the pattern to write notes on
Fabrics needed:
2)On copy of the pattern check the list of fabric to cut and label them A, B, C, D etc; do the same with the cutting instructions
3) Now mark the quilt layout diagram to corespond with their fabric A, B, C, D etc.
3) Write down all the colors
after the colors I write down the fabric I will be using
Example:pattern: A) 1/4 yard small orange primrose(#3005-33, Gold/Rust) (my fabric) rust shamrock
B) 2/3 yard large gold orchid (#3002-33, forest gold) (my fabric) rust/gold gnomes etc.

Now I can easily see by following the pattern which fabric I will use replacing the pattern colors with my colors.
Make sense so far??

Now I go to cutting fabric
Cutting fabric:
A From the small orange primrose cut------- rust shammrock
B From large gold orchid cut---------- rust gold gnomes
etc

If you do this it keeps your mind in order, or does mine. The rest I write down notes where I make changes or write something that takes awhile to figure out. I have a 3 ring binder with sheets of copies of quilts I have made with my notes, next time it will be a breeze. By making a copy if you make the quilt again you can start with a fresh copy and write down the new colors. I keep these loose pages by my machine and continously use them while, cutting and piecing all the time. Good luck