Selecting a Quilting Design

Pat, my larger quilts are generally taken to the quilter these days. We both discuss the quilting pattern and decide based on the pattern or fabric type. She'll look at a flower in the fabric perhaps and find a similar quilting pattern. The six family quilts I did for Christmas had a fishing theme and we chose "cool waters" as the pattern which looked like ripples in the water. I did a baby quilt that was all little frogs and my quilter had a frog on a lily pad pattern that worked great. I often look to see if a very linear quilt pattern needs some swirly quilting to soften the lines. I also take into consideration if the quilt is for a child or adult and if the adult is male or female. Some quilting patterns don't work well for men as they would for women. Sometimes I don't know what I want and look through her catalog and all of a sudden I'll see one and let out with a "That's it, that's the one" scream!

And then there are the times that a simple stitch in the ditch works the best.

AliceW in NJ

Pat, I have no suggestions, as I run into the same problem with every quilt I make. :S My latest "solution" is to do feathers wherever possible; these can be skewed and stretched to fit almost any space. It's a good thing I love feathers, but I can foresee the day when I'll be making something that feathers just won't "fit", style-wise.

I have the problem, too, Pat - I'm sure we're not alone! One thing that has helped me is to try to think of the quilting design as you are working on the piecing. That way you get lots of time, with the fabrics and pattern in front of you. The second thing that helps is that I have about 8 books of quilting designs. I look through the whole lot each time - after my weeks of thinking. Third thing that helps is the size of the quilt: if it is huge (rare for me, so it is my 'Huge'!!) I try not to plan anything that needs the feed dogs up and, thus, lots of turning (even with a larger harp it is still tricky to do ). Then, lastly, I have a relatively small repertoire of quilting that I can do without the feed dogs. So, that helps the decision quite a lot.

One thing I'm afraid I ignore is the 'injunction' that square/straight pieced patterns should have curved quilting designs. I very often use piecing patterns as quilting designs, and they are almost always straight.

I've thrown more into your pot of indecision, but something might help >gOkay, you've pieced or appliquéd a delightful quilt top. You are pleased and

The only book I can think of right now is "Quilting Makes The Quilt". It shows the same quilt with several different patterns quilted into it and explains some theory on what to choose and why. I know many/most of us could use help in this area. I am with you and Sandy in that I freeze up once I finish the top and have to start thinking what to do with the quilting. It makes for a lot of UFOs in my 'studio'.

I hope somebody comes up with a really good reply to your question and helps a lot of us with this. Where are Kathy A. and our other professional quilters??? Help!

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

I'll second the "Quilting Makes the Quilt" recommendation. It won't tell you what to do on YOUR quilt, but it will show a number of identical quilts with very different quilting styles.

Leslie, what on earth makes you think the pros don't freeze up when we start thinking about how to quilt it? LOL Customers always ask me for advice on this, and I have to confess to them that 10% of the time the quilt shouts and tells me what it wants, but 90% of the time I'm standing there with my finger on the "on" button and have no clue what to do. I just tell myself "Okay, you've got 30 seconds, and then I'd better hear that machine go on!" Somehow I always manage to figure something out. :)

Shapes in the prints, style of the blocks, and specific use of the quilt can all give you hints. Picnic quilts can have place settings or ants quilted into them, leafy vines work for lots of things including floral applique quilts. Debra

My art for sale at:

Wow, Nancy. That's so brilliant I can hardly stand it. Testing quilting designs without actually touching the quilt is a wonderful idea. Clear plastic auditions would be a great way to try out ideas without being committed. OTOH, a lot of us probably need to be committed anyway. Polly

"Nancy" One of the best suggestions I ever got was to get a large piece of plastic

That is a fantastic idea! And plastic sheeting is not very expensive either since clear plastic painting dropcloth could be used. Debra

My art for sale at:

Pat's post reminded me that quilting designs (and quilting in general, as opposed to piecing) often leave even experienced quilters scratching their heads. Since the interest seems to be out there, I got the idea to do a multipart post on how I approach quilting a quilt.

First, the disclaimer. This is just *my* approach, developed over 10 years (aack, has it been that long?!??) of professional quilting. There are lots of other approaches -- the best approach is the one that works for YOU. And the only way you'll find what works for you is to try several different things out. So give yourself permission to have a bit of fun and experiment. :)

Second disclaimer is that I'm strictly a machine quilter. I'm not sure I even own a hand quilting needle. But design is design, and 99% of what I'll say applies equally to hand quilting.

Enough with the intro, and on to lesson number 1.

Probably the biggest obstacle to choosing a quilting design, even for professionals, is that when you're staring at a quilt your mind goes completely blank. Every design you've even seen or thought of vanishes from your memory. So we're going to develop a design reference you can use to jog the brain cells.

I use two different references, mostly because I'm too lazy to combine them into one. The first reference is a binder full of page protectors, divided into sections labeled "overall", "borders", "blocks", etc. Each page protector has either a photo I've taken or a page torn from a magazine that highlights some quilting design that fits into the section. And when I say highlights the quilting, I mean the quilting -- these aren't photos of complete quilts, but closeups where I can see every bit of the quilting design for that area. So if I need inspiration for a border, I can turn to that section of the binder and flip through just borders.

How do you fill up this binder? The main way is photos. The next quilt show you take your digital camera to, make sure you also get a couple of dozen close ups of quilting. When you get home, print those out on plain paper. No need to use the good photo paper, and you don't even need to print in color. But get in the habit of collecting these ideas for future use. (I also note on the back of each printout where I took the photo and who did the quilting so I can give proper credit, but I've been called anal retentive, too.

*grin*) And get into the habit of taking your camera everywhere you might find a design, even if it's just your cell phone camera.

My second reference is a sketch book full of sketches and notes. For me, a

5" x 8" size is perfect -- big enough to really draw something out, but small enough that I will actually take it with me. I like to get real sketch books, the ones with heavy, slightly rough paper, and I use a soft mechanical pencil (mechanical because you won't find a pencil sharpener at a quilt show.) You can pick one of these sketch books up for about $5 at the office supply (or art supply) store, and it will last a long, long time.

How do you fill up the sketch book? Take it with you to guild meetings, quilt shows, classes, any place where you have time to sit and doodle. When you first start filling up the sketch book, your instinct will be to try to make each doodle perfect. Guess what? It's the mistakes that are the most valuable. I try drawing a design like I'm quilting -- continuous line at a constant speed. If I goof up, I start another one right below the first. On all my goofs, I jot down notes to remind me where the trouble is, like "watch out coming out of this curve" or "make sure the petals are the same size". And sometimes the goofs give me inspiration for other, better designs down the road. And, I make notes on where and when I got the inspiration. (See anal retentive, above).

At this spot a number of you are saying "But I can't draw!" I can't draw either. Doesn't matter. The main thing is to get those ideas down and make notes so your brain gets jogged. Your brain won't get jogged if you never put anything down on paper, so stop worrying about pretty and start doing. :)

Making these two references aren't nearly as much work as they sound like, and they can sure be a lifesaver when you are faced with crippling mind fade when you are looking at that quilt top.

Next installment: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

WOWIE!!! Thanks a million, Kathy. I can hardly wait for the next installment. This is *exactly* what I needed and I'm sure others will say the same thing. I'm printing this out- for when things settle down and I can start my notebooks.

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

I forgot the obvious, when in need of ideas post a link to a photo of the top here and ask for quilting pattern ideas. You will have plenty of ideas really quickly! Debra

My art for sale at:

On Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:54:01 -0700, "Kathy Applebaum" wrote some really great quilting advice!

Another source for quilting patterns is online. I have accumulated a lot of free to download patterns while surfing the net. I just print the ones that are detailed and keep them for inspiration. Some are continuous line for machine quilting, others are good for fancy hand quilting. Since I print the web page, the web address and designer's name are already on the page for me too. Very handy. Debra

My art for sale at:

Pat in VA, I haven't read any responses yet, but when I read your post I decided to make myself a nice hot cup of coffee, sit down and really study the answers. The quilting is not my favorite part. I tend to do straight line quilting or slightly wavy line stitching or SITD. I've done FM with my little quilting machine, but I don't currently have the proper table to set it up, so I can't use it at the moment. I would never spend the money to have them professionally quilted. I've done some hand quilting, but I don't have the patience for more than just a baby quilt.

I have trouble visuallizing what pattern to do on most of my quilts. I do a lot of Trip around the World, Log Cabin, Scrappy, etc. I'm really looking forward to the answers, and I hope there are lots of 'em. I've been itching to quilt my 15 or so completed tops, but whenever I decide to quilt, I'm stymied and put tham away again.

Denise

Oh boy, is *that* ever the truth! Thanks so much for doing this, Kathy! :)

Pat, I can be no help to you. My quilting designs are based on what I think I can manage. I'm hoping to change that by practicing FM.

Best regards, Michelle in NV

Thanks for doing this!! I'm thrilled.

Part deux of the quilting designs series is "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

You all know the answer to that one: practice, practice, practice. Except I'll modify this a bit, to "practice, practice, play"

The first practice is when you're just starting with machine quilting. One great piece of advice I got was to spend 30 hours practicing before touching an actual quilt. To do that, I made 30 mini quilt sandwiches out of plain muslin that were 14" x 14" (because I could get three from a width of fabric). Each night when I got home from work, I'd set the timer for an hour and quilt as much as I could on one. (This was also DH's introduction to cooking dinner on a regular basis, which was definitely a long-term bonus! LOL)

I started easy -- just trying to do any random squiggles without breaking the thread or sewing my fingers to the quilt. (Actually, when you're first starting, that's not all that easy! LOL) Then I worked on writing my name with thread (because your name is something you know how to "draw" without thinking), loops, and meanders. Next I drew a grid on the quiltlet and tried to follow the lines (that took a LOT of practice!). Once that was down, I drew a grid of just dots, no lines, and tried to go from dot to dot. Finally I was able to do things like leaves and stars.

Yes, it takes some discipline to do this first practice. I know some of you are kicking your heels at the very thought -- I feel your pain; it's not my strong suit either. But getting the machine to go where you want reliably, with even stitches, is so fundamental to machine quilting that it's really, really worth the investment of time. If you're just starting out, don't skimp on this practice.

Practice number two is for those who are still new-ish at machine quilting. You can make the machine more or less do what you want, but you aren't always comfortable. The key is to learn what your quilting style is, and the way you'll do that is to practice several styles until you find which ones click. For example, my style is loose and freeform. If you want a flower design where every petal is exactly the same and every leaf is exactly the same, I'll tell you right up front that it's not gonna happen. But if you want a flower design where there's lots of variation, the flowers fill the spaces they need to fill, and there's interesting stuff going on, I'm your gal. If I kept trying to do rigid, precise designs, I'd be a very unhappy, frustrated quilter. I know quilters who do a wonderful job on those designs, but aren't happy doing things with lots and lots of variation. I think it's great that we all have different styles -- let's get busy developing yours.

If you're scratching your head over what I mean by different styles, I'll point you to a couple of examples. (All NAYY, except that I do own books or patterns by both of these designers). Keryn Emmerson (

is a good example of a designer who does very controlled, precise designs. Take a look at her Celtic Border set -- these need to be very consistent in size and shape or they won't look good at all. Contrast this with Mary Eddy Take a look at the Jumbo Pansy design about half way down. While the pansies shown are the same as each other, you can easily imagine that it will look just as good if the pansies have lots of variation -- turn the flower a bit, change the petal sizes a bit, change the leaves a bit, etc. So how does this relate to practice number two? You're going to practice a number of different quilting styles until you know what clicks for you. Look online or at your reference binder and try to pick out a number of different styles. We're not worried about the exact design. Instead we want controlled vs. loose, tight vs. open, straight lines vs. curves. vs pointy, realistic vs. abstract. Spend a couple of hours working on each of these -- enough time so you get past the "I'm uncomfortable because this is new to me" stage. By the end of this practice you'll have a really good idea what YOUR quilting style is.

Step number 3 for getting to Carnegie Hall is play. Whether you're a newbie or experienced, give yourself permission to play once in a while. Have some muslin quilt sandwiches made up, grab one, and try new things. (Or use your sketch book from the last lesson). What if you do a feathered wreath, but make the "feathers" long and skinny? What if you fill in some "feathers" with tiny loops? How about changing the "feathers" to leaves? How about square leaves? Hearts? Stars? Lightning bolts? What if you go back over each line of stitching 4 or 5 times? The point is to try something different and have fun doing it. Don't worry about perfect -- if you like what you came up with, you can perfect it later. This is play time, so tell your inner critic to go out for coffee and let loose a bit.

Next time: eharmony for quilts