I'm surprised you feel "left behind". Using patterns is fun! Designing is too, but just getting inspired by someone's pattern and making it your own by your fabric choices and quilting design is fun!
I'm fairly new to quilting and recently have been trying to figure out piecing from a picture without a pattern and it is much more difficult than having the pattern.
I do usually add my own touches to patterns. Sometimes I've had to because the patterns had an error and I had to figure out how to make the blocks fit -- does that make me a designer?
