MeadowMist

I'm looking for on-line free software to help in quilt planning. I don't want to do anything deep or fancy, mostly just playing around with different layouts for hst's and variations of log cabin/courthouse steps. Any suggestions?

Kitsie

Let Google be your friend. eg: search for "Log Cabin quilts". Same with any other layouts you'd like. Many have a block for that pattern with instructions of how to make it. Good luck!!

MeadowMist

What I'm looking for is something which will let me design my own pattern. I have a general idea of what I want but would like to play around with some software to help fine tune it. I've planned simple quilts on Excel spreadsheets but with log cabins and courthouse steps combined it's a bit cumbersome.

ibex94

quiltassistant.com is the free program that is recommended by some. If you can find a used copy of Quilt Design Wizard (ebay has one for $10) , that would be a fun one to work with until you're ready to buy EQ8.

quiltedsunshine

I'm a pattern designer and have loved using Microsoft Publisher. You may already have it if you have Microsoft Office.

Iceblossom

You might try the site mywebquilter.com

It's not software but I get a lot out of this site:
https://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/

All sorts of grids, some quilting specific or at least highly quilting desirable

Cheshirepat

Oooh, that's got some good stuff there - thanks Iceblossom!

MeadowMist

Thank you for the great ideas. I love the site with the graphs, etc. Many useful things there, not necessarily for quilting but just in general. I remember a few years ago there was a website (I think it was associated with one of the fabric stores) that had a free quilt planner in it but I don't remember what the site was.

What I ended up dong is getting a page/template of log cabin blocks and printed a bunch of those, then cut the size down to 50% and printed those. Did the same with courthouse block. I'm planning my next project and would like it to be a combination of 4" and 8" log cabin blocks or possibly courthouse blocks, so this should work for me. Pictures attached of what I'm talking about.

However . . . . it got me thinking, for someone inventive . . . . paper is flimsy and little pieces are hard to work with when moving them all over and trying different layouts. What would be nice would be to have a lot of small blocks of log cabins or courthouse steps (either wood or plastic or possibly made up of the same material as magnetic poetry is made of). These would be much easier to work with and they wouldn't fray or blow away. Or maybe these are already out there? Or maybe this idea would go nowhere because people would rather do it on their computer. Personally, for something this simple I'd rather move the blocks manually than on a computer.

Iceblossom

Meadowmist, it is probably worth buying EQ. The hardest thing (I think) is designing quilts with different block sizes, but if you can combine the units so that (4) 4" blocks makes an 8" pattern, that's pretty easy. I still do a lot with graph paper, colored bits (usually from junk mail) and messing around with stuff physically as well as mentally, Graph paper is easier to handle while watching tv!

When I started quilting it was back in the 70s... I had a number of things I used to help my mental planing, not sure what they are called today but various "tray" puzzles for long car drives? Tiles of shapes and colors. Some of wood or plastic or magnets.. Tangram is a special type, but stuff like this is great
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram

Then this classic book came out
https://www.amazon.com/Log-Cabin-Qui.../dp/0960297014
I still use it to refer to different layouts.

But for the ease of project planing, you can fuzz your eyes and mind and treat log cabin blocks exactly the same as HST (half-square triangle) squares, keeping in mind that those little tiles equal whatever size you are working with.