Dolores: As someone already posted, Quilt Design Wizard is a great place to start. It is published by the Electric Quilt (EQ) people and teaches you the basics. The program calculates the amount of fabric you will need for your creation accurately. Plus you get to actually see if you like what you thought up. I consider it a good stepping stone for the big program EQ6 or EQ7. A friend has let me use her "7" while I'm saving to get mine. Just depends if you like to use computers or not. EQ7 takes a little while to learn but there is online help...