I SO feel the pain and frustration of those who *need* and only use fully disclosed patterns for their quilts. I just thank God and Mary Ellen Hopkins that I never learned to quilt that way and was, therefore, early on relieved of needing to count on all the math to make a quilt.
I built somewhat of a stash first, buying 3/4 - 1 yard cuts of any thing I liked, rarely more than 1 yard of any one fabric. then I invested in a hard-backed graph paper book wiith a 4 squares to the inch grid, a six inch ruler, a good eraser, and a large pack of colored pencils. Then I started drawing squares and rectangles and triangles and making quilt designs.
I still have those first pads; up to a dozen of them now, LOL! I still don't have EQ, though I did use the original PCQuilts for a while back in the dark ages of the late 80s-early 90s.
I made blocks from my stash, sewed them together into quilts and the quilts ended up whatever size they wanted to be, LOL! I've always said my fabric talks to me.
It is SO freeing to be able to graph/design one's own quilts. I challenge and encourage you to buy paper and pencils and spend 20 minutes a day playing for the next month or so. Copy some from pictures of quilts if you wish, but not all of your designs. You might be surprised.
Jan in VA