Planning a quilt: My stash comes out on my big table. As colors and patterns catch my eye, the quilt design evolves in my head. I never follow a set pattern from books, yet use them as guidelines for expanding ideas. As for fabric purchases, I buy what I like from sales in stores, clearance tables, yard sales and thrift stores, etc. There's no rhyme nor reason, yet it all eventually comes together. The best plan is not to have a plan!

Same here... quilt then borders when I get it done because I always change my mind. When I do plan it out like I did with one I am working on now I wish I hadn't... now I have a lot of extra work trying to get some thing I like out of it when if I had just waited I would have used fabric they don't have anymore and been done....

I do it the same as you. The main part of the quilt always *talks* to me for the borders and binding.

Suzy

this is how I manage things also

I do a little of both. Most of the time I buy the top and border fabric at the same time but if nothing strikes me as a good companion for the top I'll wait and buy it later. The binding is usually later too. It depends on what I'm making.

I plan out a main design and let it happen as I go along. Have a general idea of what I definitely want in the quilt, and work around that. All too often I change a fabric or color, and have even changed the size. I do graph a complete quilt before I start. Sometimes what looks good on the graph paper, or even from EQ7, does not always pan out and gets changed. I never cut a complete quilt out before I start. It makes me ill (literally) to have smaller cuts of fabric stored away because I ended up not using it. I may need those larger pieces down the road. Just can't cut it until I am sure I will use it. So, quilt blocks can be up on the design wall for days before a border or binding is decided on.

I too like to plan as I go. Design can change as you stitch along.

I usually just plan as I go since I usually never ever buy all the material I need in one visit. Easier to spread the cost in to a couple of visits then one. Of course I have my sons quilt that I was planning to buys ll the material in one visit. But we shall see. Beth

The design process is different on every quilt I make. Sometimes I'll start with a pattern and add fabrics as I go, or sometimes I'll start with one fabric and add others, then decide on the pattern. And still other times I may start with a specific set of coordinating fabrics. I rarely know exactly what the borders will look like until I get to that point.

I have never made my own creation. I always follow a pattern so I buy all the fabric at once, including the backing. I'm not there yet where I can make my own pattern. Maybe someday I can afford a computer program.

I plan as I go. After I have completed PART of my quilt, I may have a better idea of what will work for a border, and go ahead and buy the fabric to be sure it will not be sold out when I need it, but when the quilt top is near completion, I might decide it will not work. I find it better all the way around to decide on a border fabric after the quilt top is actually ready for the border.

This is how I do it too! I almost always incorporate some of the fabric I used in the border into the quilt. If I am doing a pieced border then definitely I will be using some, if not all of the fabrics I used in the quilt in the border. I am one who buys fabric without a purpose in mind. I like the fabric, I buy. So I always try to buy enough yardage to incorporate some into a border, even if it is just a narrow accent border.

On occasion, I have bought a fabric and saw that a coordinated border stripe was available so bought it to go with, for when I get around to using it in a project. I usually buy enough to do a queen size quilt, which is my most common quilt size.

I have only had an intended border fabric not work out once and ended up buying a different fabric.

I too like to fly by the seat of my pants, plan as I go!

I plan the entire quilt BUT a quilt will be what IT wants to be. At some point it takes on a life of it's own and I just follow it where it takes me. I have tried to fight with a quilt and force it to be made my way but the quilt always wins. I have a shelf full of quilt-tops in the closet that I didn't listen to and they prove my point.

I do both. There has been times when I new exactly what I was looking for when I decided on the quilt top itself, then other times I have no clue and just go with whatever happens.

I usually plan my matchy-matchy quilts from my stash and pick out border fabrics at the same time as I pick out the main fabrics. Using up scraps from previous quilts, as I am now, I pick out border fabrics I have cut out before, or I just pick out fabrics I might not want to use later.

I start with the overall plan........I finish with what the quilt tells me.

I know exactly what I am going to do when I start. I piece the backing and binding at the same time as the top. In fact, I cut the binding when cutting the top and usually have that sewed and pressed and rolled before I ever even start piecing the top.

My quilts are a lot like my cooking. My son used to get so irritated when he was ten or eleven. He'd come in and I'd be browning ground meat. He'd ask "What's for supper?" My answer - "I don't know, I'm not finished with it yet."

I always have a vision in my brain - sometimes that vision is "Lost in Translation." Sometimes it work out beautifully.

It's always a big puzzle, isn't it? That's why we love quilting--the challenge of it all.

Plan?, what Plan? I was suppose to have a Plan?:D

I love being able to let the quilt sort of take me where it wants to go. I often come up with a pattern ahead of time, but it is a guideline, not something that is cast in concrete!
I like to think of myself as a Freestyle Quilter. LOL

It depends on the quilt. I have done it backwards - loved a border and then figured out the center and also the other way. I've also designed the whole quilt at once. I guess it wherever my whimsy takes me.

I do that too. Just take it one step at a time. :-)

I start with the inside main part of the quilt, I plan my borders usually after I do the main part, sometimes I plan the colors as I go along, find colors in my stash that go along with my quilt, sometimes I need to go to the store and match my colors. I sort of plan as I go at times

I plan as I go, because I have to see it spread out, it's hard to imagine how it will really look. Have bought fabrics for borders/binding, then changed my mind once the main part is done- keeps me buying more fabric! LOL!

I like your approach. Usually I have the borders worked out but have been known to change my mind as the quilt comes together.

I make quilts for the wounded soldiers and make 2 types, red,white and blue and cabin or camp type. That way I can rotate through fabric without having to buy a lot every time I quilt. I like to have a pictorial panel in the center and then sash around, with some piecing on the ends for length. I hate to plan too much as it takes the creative joy out of the equation and the fun also. If you are too rigid, it gets to be too much like work. Have fun and CREATE.

Is here another seccret for posting pictures. I surrender. Help!
 

Would like to post some of my pictures, but this gets to be hard, harder than quilting them.

I'm with you Sandy. Too much like work. Prefer joy and creativity.

Usually do not know for sure what my borders will be. Sometimes not even the setting for the blocks I do. Kind of let the fabric tell me what it wants. I know what you mean about getting "strange looks". ha.

My favorite thing to do is find a fabric that I absolutly love, one of those you hate to cut. I use this fabric as the backing and build a quilt around it. I posted the peach barn raising quilt a few weeks ago and it was built using this method. Love what every one else does. great ideas.
peace

I choose all the fabric for the main body of the quilt and shop for border, backing and binding fabric after I see how that goes together. I have purchased everything at once and then didn't like the way the border fabric looked, so I had to buy different fabric. So I buy fabric in stages now.

Norma

Count me as another figure-it-out-as-I-go-along quilter. I often can't really imagine what it's going to look like until I get some of it made. Even quilts that I painstakingly planned beforehand will sometimes take on a life of their own while underway. I enjoy the process.

i start out with a plan and all the material ithat i think will work with the quilt in mind but often change my mind midstream !! but the fabric i bought thinking would look good in the quilt and changed my mind about still looks good in my stash !

Some quilts are planned from start to finish and other are just done as I go - and that is really more fun!

I start however and wherever my "Muse" directs me. Sometimes I begin with a pattern and go in search of the right fabric, whether that be in my stash or in the store. I've learned it is more than "OK" to get just enough fabric to work on the center, and not even think about the borders. Chances are, if I pick up any additional fabric with the first buy, it will end up in my stash. I'm not thinking about batting, backing or binding either. Sometimes the pattern ends up with a completely different border, or sashing is removed or added, appliques appear, etc. Sometimes I'll play around with quilt blocks until I come up with a combination I like -- block and color combination -- and that turns into a quilt top, and then I think about borders, or not, and what am I going to do about the backing? What is so wonderful about the quilting process is that if you just let your creativity loose, you can come up with the most wondrous creations. Of course, not all of them turn out the way you want. I call those "practice pieces", and I know when they're not working, so I stop. It's like writing a story, and you realize it's not working, so you stop writing. But when the writing is working, it's awesome! So yes, I can follow an outline, and do technical writing, or I can let the creative Muse loose and write fiction. To me, quilting and writing are very much alike.

I never plan a whole quilt I just let them take me along for the finish

I'm a seat of the pants type designer. I will often times put to paper the general gist of the quilt & wing it from there. Following patterns is not my style.

I allow the quilt to dictate what borders to add and what the backing should look like. Sometime it just sits there for a long time until I make up my mind.