Lately, I've been letting the fabric lead me into a pattern. I keep it simple, and they seem to turn out well. My dgd's quilt started with a block from EQ7. The 'truly spectacular' quilts would become my UFO's, as I don't have the patience to make what I consider 'truly spectacular' quilts.

There is one pattern that I absolutely love and would fall into my 'truly spectacular' quilt classification. It's called 'Country Hearts', uses 3 fabrics: 1 solid cranberry, one plaid cranberry and one white, and has at least a million pieces - well, maybe only 1500 or so. It's in a book called "Quick Rotary Cutter Quilts, Pam Bono Designs". published by Oxmoor House, 1994. Did I mention that I love quilts that use only 2 - 4 fabrics?

I look at the picture of this quilt at least once a week...maybe someday...

The wholesale company in Portland, EE Schenck, has many free patterns supplied by the mfgs of the cloth. http://www.eeschenck.com/default.asp...s=1&r=new_cust Upper left hand corner of the screen second column, click on quilts and projects....many, many patterns and projects there.

I've gotten patterns from magazines, books, stores, classes, and online, plus classic patterns learned from individuals. But I rarely make a quilt exactly following the pattern. One magazine pattern, I enlarged from lap size to queen size. I've enlarged patterns from classes. Sometimes I'll take one element from a pattern and combine it with something else. For example, I was looking for a block to use as a frame for an applique I wanted to make. Lots of times, the magazines give me ideas on color combinations to try. I would never have combined purple and teal until I saw it in someone elses quilt. And for bargello, once you learn the technique, everything is your own design, unless you copy a pattern exactly.

Besides the above, I like to check out the new patterns at my lqs. I like Allpeoplequilt.com and some of the magazine websites have free patterns. There are a lot of free patterns out there. It's fun to change them and make them your own.

I sometimes make up my own, but I also have two books, one from my sister, and one from my husband. I like being different so very often I do small machine applique wall hangings. Also there are bunches to be found online.

This is what I do when looking for inspiration. There are tons of block patterns, then I have fun modifying them, enlarging them or seeing what kind of secondary pattern I can get by using more than one pattern. I have EQ and when I see something I like I usually work with it in EQ.