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!

I have "made it up as I went along" with a few quilts, not really intending to, as I find it much slower than actually following instructions! But things happen -- like my latest quilt which I had intended to do following a magazine pattern. I started out fine, made up about 12 of the 18 pinwheels required and then found they did not fit into the rows as per instructions. No wonder -- the instructions said to cut squares five and one quarter inch -- when I checked the internet for the magazine I found an error message that said 5x8" squares of each fabric! (If I had used my brain I should have thought that 5 and one quarter inch was a rather odd size to start with) So I had a choice either to scrap the work I had done so far, which I was enjoying, or continue somehow modifying the pattern. So I ended up with my own design. But I am a bit mathematically challenged, so don't use graph paper -- I cut everything full size out of newspaper to try various layouts -- fast and cheap and much more likely for me to be accurate.

Hi Jaciqitznok: I am a new quilter and have designed a variety of blocks. They are contemporary, but in 12" squares. I have pieced some, but realize when I finish this quilt I need to make the square 24" as the pieces to put together are very small. I love batiks, and am making a quilt using Bali Pops. When I finish machine piecing it, prior to my hand quilting it I will take a picture of it and try to post it. I never posted anything on the board so I hope this some out.
lbmyway

I love designing my own quilts. When I started quilting, I would "reverse engineer" something I saw online that I liked. Work out the block sizes, and figure out how to put it together. Then I started taking inspiration from those, but coming up with something a little different. Recently, however, I have started designing my own. In fact, I just finsihed a pattern for one of my recent designs and put it up for sale on my blog.

I do. Constantly making quilts in my head and doodling.....I am working on my EQ skills. I get the blocks designed but haven't figured out how to get more than one of them in a quilt yet. I just need to spend more time on it....

I've only used one pattern, and that was the quilting fairy godmother.. I have a problem with using other people's designs.. I like to do a quilt from start to finish, and say I made it..
I have a graph paper pad that lives between my mattress, and head board.. I also tend to redesign my quilts as I go.. I get to parts that I look at, and decide I'm not in love with.. and change things..

very seldom do i ever use someone else's pattern- i may at times use a 'traditional' block- or incorporate an applique pattern into a quilt but 99.8% of the time my quilts are my own- i do not use EQ, I do sometimes use graph paper to help me keep things (in size) but generally what ever i sketch out has nothing to do with what becomes reality...other than sometimes i really do stay within a certain size. i start with fabrics i want to make a quilt out of---then start pulling fabrics to go with them and i start cutting & sewing my initial (vision- thoughts) are never what actually happens in the end- but i've never been unhappy with what does become :thumbup:

Some times I make scrappy squares for the fun of it, they are normally in several sizes and then I design a quilt so I can use them. Oh yes I may have to make a few more squares and/or add sashilng and borders.

Funny you ask.... I am working on one now for my son's wedding. All on paper. Nothing elaborate....but still my design. We will see how it turns out. ;-)

I have done a few of my own as well. I always get ideas in my head and usually the struggle is to make them come out right in fabric from what I am thinking in my head. It's always fun to create from scratch.

I followed a pattern a few times. Bored me to tears. What I like best is to look at odd pieces that other people discard and turn them into something beautiful. Just let the fabric "speak" to me.

I designed one for my grandson who wanted specific things (age 6). He wanted it to be black, gold, and silver with a little blue and wanted dogs and cats in the quilt. In this case it was almost easier to make up my own design to make sure he got what he wanted.

Am working on one now. Traditional blocks which I converted to paper pieced versions on my own. Adding design elements as I go. I guess the first steps to completely designing my own.

I frequently design my own quilts either using old blocks or playing. I usually have to use graph paper since EQ does not like the quilts that I design and I get tired of fighting it.

I design my own applique baby quilts. I used to have an internet sight that shared how to make applique quilts. I didn't feel that I could put someone else designs on my site, so I started to design my own. I have put a few my patterns on craftsy.

Just a beginner, so I start with a pattern. However, for all three quilts I've worked on I find that I preview them on the bed they'll end up on and need to "add" to the pattern, whether it's more blocks or adding borders so it will
"drape" over the sides / ends better and hide the mattress. Some day I hope to design the whole quilt myself!

I design many of my quilts... but sometimes I just want it easy and buy a pattern. I like graph paper and doodle sometimes while watching TV... but sometimes I use EQ ... it just depends on my mood.

I also design many of my quilts. I use graph paper, a pencil, and a ruler. In fact, I've bought so much graph paper in the past few years that I've pretty much kept the industry going and sent all of their kids to college!

I love the designing process and feel proud when I see the fruits of my labor in a finished quilt that looks like no other one on earth.

Jacquie, absolutely, you can design anything you like. I find quilting an excellent outlet for all my crazy creative thoughts, some turn out okay, others not so much. Do it, give it a whirl, then post your results so we can applaud your creativity!

Nope. I'm afraid I find I am a pattern follower. I might change something a bit, but the overall pattern has been designed by someone else.

I have designed two on my own. But both designs incorporated blocks that I either had to have a pattern for or have been around so long they are considered public domain. One was a mariner's compass and I used a pattern for one by Judy Matehison and the raw idea for the quilt I used one of the pictures in book, although mine looked nothing like the picture when done. The picture was the seed that started the idea. The other I built around a panel and incorporated traditional Log cabin blocks. Granted I did not need a pattern for the LC and they have been around for so long it doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to put one together with no pattern. I did draft it out on graph paper before sewing though. The other block in this design was also based on a picture I saw but with no measurements or anything so I drafted my own block based on that picture. So I'm not sure if either of these truly qualify as designing my own quilt in that I didn't invent a block out of thin air and didn't have some kind of vision for a quilt. I took inspiration from other sources.