My Quilt Design Process
My sweet friend, Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts, recently released a wonderful e-book called DIY Block Design and I am so honored that she invited to me to share my quilt design process during her DIY Block Design Challenge and Blog Hop! My first thought was how the heck am I going to get the crazy mess of quilt ideas, colors and designs from my head into a blog post! So I am going to break it down a bit and start with inspiration....
Inspiration:
I find inspiration everywhere! I think the heart and what draws me most to quilting is the fabric. The patterns in the fabric and the colors are the foundation to all of my quilts. I usually buy my fabric then decide what I want to make with it later. Sometimes I slice into a fat quarter bundle the moment it lands in my studio and then sometimes is sits on the shelf for a month or two (or 24 - Hi there, my Tula Pink stash). I recently started my journey in dying fabric and it has been so much fun creating my own color palettes and taking more ownership of my work.Instagram, blogs, quilt magazines and quilt shows are usually where I find a lot quilt design inspiration. If at all possible, I take a picture of it, but if that isn't an option, I try to catalog them on Pinterest or my iPad. Then when something that has inspired me so much that I can't get it out of my head, I then begin my design process....
MY Design process:
When it comes to designing a block or a quilt, I go straight to my EQ7. My husband bought this program for me over two years ago and I love it! Before EQ7, I did all my work on graph paper and while this method is definately tried and true for most, there is nothing better than designing a quilt with the fabric you hope to use and see if your imagination rings true with reality. There have been many quilts that have been left on the cutting room floor so to speak - and that's ok! Just like a sketch or drawing, sometimes it's just an exercise to improve your skills and not suppose to be the masterpiece. Now, I am going to share my inspiration and design process of a recent quilt of mine so you can see my process in action!One day while hanging out on Pinterest, I came across this picture and uploaded it into Play Crafts Palette Builder. Using this palette as my guide, I attempted to derive those colors onto my hand-dyed fabric....
In this case, the picture and colors reminded me of the changes of colors during fall and inspired me to make a maple quilt. In EQ, I started with just a simple maple quilt...
Loving the colors but not the uniformity, soooo....
Now loving the different directions the leaves are falling but still not quite....
Ohhhhh, digging the negative space! But thinking I want to switch back to a lighter background. Oh wait, what if I.....
...invert some of those blocks! Yes! I love it!
So once I have a visual gameplan, I get to work doing the quilty math. While EQ7 does help you decide on block size and quilt size, the cutting guides are not enough to get you to cutting straight away. This is when graph paper, a calculator and DIY Block Design comes in...
I don't always use the EQ cutting suggestions and sometimes I like to make my HSTs based on the size of fabric I am using. In Alyce's book, she gives you the measurements and shows you several options for making HSTs - so useful!
I also make sure I take detailed notes when I make a quilt. I want to be able to recreate it again or if I decide to make a pattern or submit it to a magazine, it's all ready to go!
No quilt is completely finished until it has been photographed...
Now that you have seen a little bit of how I process my inspiration, head over to Instagram and share what inspires you to enter Alyce's fun giveaway ( #myDIYblockdesign )! Find out more details here! If you want to see what I am up to on Instagram, you can follow me @myfabricrelish :) Maybe I can inspire you!
Want to check out all the other bloggers participating?
Great design and the your quilt is my best favorite layout.
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