do you ever design your quilts?
 

I don't mean take something you see and change it, but actually design it? In EQ, on graph paper, etc??

I have tons of quilts in the works, UFO's, PIG's you name it, but I also have a few that I have totally designed myself and lately after seeing what they want at the shows, etc, I have decided that I need to focus on making at least 1 quilt each year that is ALL my own original design! Even if I do not enter it anywhere, it really needs to be MINE....not Judy Neimeyer, or Carol Doak, or Atkinson designs, etc...but mine!
AND not artsy either, something traditional with a modern flair maybe! Though I do artsy things in small forms!

Sounds like your inner designer is trying to get out! Let her out already!

I'm with you, Jacquie! I almost always design my own, usually in EQ. Mine tend to use traditional blocks with a twist, or two blocks combined in a different way. I just put together a PDF book of my designs that are waiting to be made into quilts. It's the part of quilting that I enjoy the most.

I say "Go for it!"

ooohhh...never thought of making a PDF booklet of my designs...think I need to do that...

I've designed several and I'm working on publishing a few of them.

Yes, I do all the time. They are nothing spectacular but I do enjoy the process.

I often design my own too. I have one in the works right now that I am designing around some fabric with ladies on it that I really fell in love with. I also do make quilts from some more traditional designs, but I find I like something a little "different" most of the time.

I've never used anything but my own designs, no patterns, even when all I was making was traditional quilts. It's much more satisfying for me that way.

About 25 years ago I designed a baby quilt for a cousin's daughter. I wanted her to have a quilt that represented a part of her life she would not remember. My cousin and his wife were living in Holland for most of the pregnancy and came back to California just before she was born. I found some marvelous farm animal material and wanted to make a quilt with pinwheels representing windmills and use this fabric as the focus. so I took out graph paper and labored over a design. It really came out very cute. I see it when we visit my cousin and family, who now all permanently live in Europe and I am always tickled to see it. I just need to remember to take a picture of it!