Quilting Designs Class

On Friday I'm teaching Quilting Design at http://www.quiltuniversity.com/ We'll be spending some time looking at design sources and how we can be inspired by design sources around us. By sources, I mean some of the many places where you might find inspiration for creating quilting designs.

• Look at corners of rooms, places where there might be some picture moldings, where there are joins of walls and floors.
• Look at the sidewalks downtown. Thank goodness city planners in many places are being more creative these days and we see interesting manhole covers, grating around trees and cement paths that have designs stamped into them.
• Try to see your environment in a slightly different perspective, while riding the bus or waiting in line for lunch. Look around and find curves of interest, straight or crossing lines. Think of repetition, pattern, sequence wherever it can happen.
• Pay particular attention to advertising in magazines and on billboards. It is all around us as we are too often aware. Ask your self how advertisers use design to get their message across? Think of the golden arches, car hood ornaments, the back pockets of your favourite jeans or the make up counter at the mall. Good design is fundamental to the object.

Take rubbings of windows, there is wonderful inspiration as close as your local church or temple. Stained glass looks wonderful as a technique, but think of the designs as quilting lines, too!

• Kid’s colouring books. Pick up a couple at the grocery store
• Post Cards. Who says you have to be on vacation to buy them?
• Sidewalks. Look down around you
• Your front door, the neighbour's front door
• Hub caps. They are neat, take a look
• Gift Wrap
• Birthday, seasonal and all purpose cards

Scrapbooking has become popular and there are hundreds of different ideas for quilting designs. If you do not scrapbook, you probably know someone who does. Ask them for ideas and resources. Consider using:

• different stamps (stamp a dark colour on paper and enlarge to the desired size)
• precut border templates for tracing
• die cuts for gluing on pages (simple little motifs to enlarge)
• stickers for motif ideas

What other places could you find ideas for design? Send me in a picture and I'll post them on my blog! You can register for the class, just go to http://www.quiltuniversity.com/

See you in class!

Learn All About Quilting Design

On February 24 my class on Quilting Design will open at http://www.quiltuniversity.com/ and its a class I always love to teach. There are limitless ways to design the quilting part of our work and its often overlooked as an important design element. Here's a little taster to get started.......

Keep a Design File
Now is a good time to begin collecting and organizing those design ideas. Have a couple of manila folders handy to put magazine clippings, photos and anything that can suggest a design possibility to you. Take pictures at quilt shows of designs and quilts you admire. Remember that you can pick elements out of several designs and combine them for your own. Of course, you must be careful of copyright infringements. The border treatment in one quilt could combine well with the corner and setting triangles of another.

Some of the items which might be included in your design folio

Start collecting quilting designs and stencils when you shop. I think dollar-wise, they are one of the best deals around. We will be talking about sources for these and other non-quilting ideas for your designs in the  class. there's still time to register.

Design Ideas

I spent the day in Old Montreal last weekend and looked around at the buildings for some design inspiration. Here`s some photos I took:

I think some of the cutouts could be good Give and Take Applique Designs.

Curves and swags are perfect quilting designs.

These carvings are great designs for applique in the setting triangles in a quilt with on point blocks.

My favourite: an Art Deco design with ferns and a centred rosette. What ideas can you come up withÉ