THIS Design. No, Maybe This One. Or This One.

I don't really do New Years resolutions, but if I did I would have resolved to spend 2016 focused more on teaching and one-of-a-kind designs, and less on published patterns.   So far, so good--though at only a bit more than 3 weeks into the year it may be too soon to celebrate success.  It's back to "Design Mondays" for the Spinster.  :-)  And she's pretty happy about that.

I'm still designing things for classes and for a few special events at my LQS, and I'm trolling around for ideas for a May class.   People have been asking for a curved piecing class, and I've been thinking about a Drunkard's Path class for some time, but I haven't quite hit on the right design.  In the end I might just do a fairly standard DP design but it has revisiting a design I did months (or maybe years, at this point) ago.   It was originally for a class, but its time had not come,   Still, I like the basics of the design and decided to pursue more designing today.

Retro Fans Original

Here's the original design:  Retro Fans, which combines Drunkard's Path and Pinwheel blocks.  I really, really like the basic "block", the variety of colors and the simplicity of it all.

Retro Fans Class 1

 Originally, for the class (way back when) I wanted to simplify even more, so participants wouldn't be daunted by the number of units they'd have to make.  So, I reduced the number of units/blocks, and set it in a modern, a-symmetrical set.

Retro Fans 1

I still like that, but for a one-off design for myself I wanted a little more....something.   Thinking that I might like a base or stand for the fan, I tried a few possibilities and, in the end, settled on triangles.  And a fan makes the air move, so perhaps something to signify the waves of air movement would add to the design.  Odd numbers, especially 3, are more pleasing to the eye, and I like a bit of shift from straight-line order.   This is still pretty symmetrical, but OK.   MAYBE this one would be it?

Retro Fans 2

Yeah, no.  Not it.  Not yet.  It's better with graduated length of lines, don't you think?   You probably can't tell the difference, but the lines in this version aren't all centered in the "blocks" for the lines.   It changes the spacing, which might not seem significant--especially in an illustration this small, but it does change the spacing between the lines.  I may or may not like it.






But there are other ideas to try out, as they start rolling through my brain.   We could extend with lines, with a a break in them, of course, to give us some white space.  We could shift the whole design concept into a diagonal.   I'm finding that rather a good idea.

       

Retro Fans 3

Retro Fans 4

                           

Retro Fans 5

What if I extend the lines again, and have them start to flow (blow?) off the top edge of the quilt.  (OK, I was being lazy.  I didn't want to shift everything down in the design software.  But off-the-edge is a modern design concept, so I thought I'd give that a try as a rationalization for my laziness.)   Frankly, it's not my cup of tea in this instance.

Retro Fans 6

There was another option for the airwaves:  lines closer together.   Bleah.  Too much density, and drawing attention too much away from the fans.














BUT I could introduce the denser waves with the dispersed waves.  Better.  It adds a bit of texture and interest without bulking it all up.  The denser waves could be extended, or remain only close to the fan blades. I could live with either.
           

     

Retro Fans 7

  

Retro Fans 8

I think I could get rid of the fan bases.  They're a little distracting, and don't add much to the design.

Retro Fans 9

Retro Fans 10

And I knew I had buckle down and shift everything down, so the right-most fan started in the bottom corner., which fixed the issue of the airwaves getting cut off at the top left edge. It's OK to hit the edge of the quilt, but not to have the design cut off before its time.

Then I wondered how it would look if some of the ariwaves moved over to the adjacent fans.  Actually, I don't hate this.  It might be all right.  I would want the lower right fan to be the color I wanted to dominate, as the quilt would have more of that color (and the least amount of the color in the upper left fan.) 

Retro Fans 11

I thought I was finished, and happy, but suddenly the squared-off base of the airwaves looked clunky, and not a good contrast with the general diagonal flow.  So, a little more adding and deleting of blocks and....I think I've reached the end of working on this design.  For today.    I'm not sure which one I like best; what do you think?

Retro Fans 12

Yes, YOU Are Creative, Too!

"How do you come up with your designs? My brain just doesn't work that way."   I hear that question more and more these days.  Honestly, it makes me kind of giggle; I don't feel like any more of a designer than anyone else!  Mostly, I just play, drawing on ideas that just jump out at me when I "leave space" for it, as Weeks Ringle says.   I believe that everyone is creative, perhaps in a different way than the person next to you, but able to create designs--once you are open to the possibility.

So, how DO I come up with quilt designs? 

Quilt designs from prompts and challenges 
Writers often get their creative juices flowing with published "prompts," which pose characters/settings/situations.  Similarly, sometimes my design ideas come from prompts or challenges that I set myself, as in the 12-week challenge I just finished.  I had ideas for several of the weeks of the challenge, but then started to ask family and friends for "prompts"  when I started to feel the well dry up.  They did very well (thanks, everyone!) and I discovered that challenges set by others works pretty well for me.

Quilt designs from details all around you
 Sometimes ideas are in the world before my eyes, as with the "Elemental" design based on an antique door hinge at my hairdresser's shop, or a light fixture in the rest room at my dentist's office, or the ceiling at a convention center.   Stay tuned for a quilt series around architectural and decor elements.

I think you can train yourself, or maybe it's condition yourself, to notice those things.  I find myself doing it more often, practicing, since I've become aware of it.  Sometimes I practice it when I have to wait somewhere.  Recently I had occasion to spend some considerable time waiting at a clinic and I challenged myself to find five design ideas in what I saw around me.  (The magazine rack was a very interesting design, that might be interpreted in a quilt one day.)


Quilt designs from constraints
Sometimes they come, interestingly, from constraints posed to me.   Most often (for me) that has been in the form of the precuts or a specific fabric, as in quilts I've designed for Cut Up and Quilt for various occasions:   shop hops, bus trips, and the like.

"Going Up" was designed around three constraints, or maybe I should call them considerations: 5" squares of solid colors, easy to piece, and modern (because the shop has quite a modern flair.)

Going Up!

"Hair Raising" needed to use some extra kits of 18 fat eights of Halloween fabric, and have a bit of a scary edge to it.  (Someday I want to do this in icy blues.)

Hair Raising

"Hop, Skip, and a Jump" focused on fabric designed just for the All Iowa Shop Hop, with accents of solid brights.   The nature of the shop hop fabric was such that I wanted it to be used in large pieces.  Again, I thought it should be easy to piece, so the bright colors were in long strips and the corner triangles were of a size such that corners and points didn't have to match.

Hop, Skip, and a Jump

The ten (well, in the end, eleven) quilts in the "Ten for Ten" series all came from a "limitation" of using 10" squares.  In that series there was a great deal of "What if..." going on:  what if I cut here after I sew that?  Or what if I sewed it THIS way, instead?   In other words, there was much of trial and error.  I have a stack of iterations of Underwater Basketweaving that could cover Alaska.   I'm working now on a series "Jelly Plus," designing quilts that use a jelly roll and some other precut.  "Jumble Sale" started it out, and the newest one is "Zipped," which will be published this weekend.

Underwater Basketweaving

Quilt designs in series
I'm sure everyone is different creatively, and you must find what works best for  you.  For me, for example, designing in series gets my creative cogs turning.  Perhaps it gives me a structure for trying many new ideas, without having to find completely new concepts for each quilt.  Perhaps it's just that my mind wants to categorize and organize ideas.  (I was a librarian for more than 40 years, after all.)  Whatever the reason, it works well for me.  I have the attention span of a two year old, however, so the series necessarily have limits, and then I want to be on to something else.  You may get bored with series, or find that one series can last you a very long time.

"Zipped"  is not only a Jelly Plus but the start of a series of quilts based on fasteners.  I liked zipped and I decided to go more general for more ideas.  What is a zipper?  It's a fastener.  What other fasteners are there?  My brain is  mulling designs with names such as "Clipped" and "Snapped" and "Stapled."

Zipped

I've already started a "Retro Modern" series, and ideas for more in that series are chasing each other around in my head.

Quilt design ideas from "failed" designs
Confession time:  I have a lot of bad ideas, and designs that are just flat out ugly.   I could let that discourage me, but each less-than-useful idea is one design I don't have to bother to make.  Sometimes it's just sheer volume and perseverance that create the best designs; seldom is a first iteration a success.  My design book and my libraries in Electric Quilt are filled with designs that will never see fabric BUT they may spark another thought or idea, that leads to a better one.

And, an aside:  Don't hesitate to listen to what a quilt or design tells you.  Fellow quilters, you know what I mean!   I don't like to sew on borders, and when Spaghetti Straps told me it wanted four of them, I cried.  But I did them, because the quilt was the better for it.

Spaghetti Straps

"Paper Chains," a design that will soon be published is different than originally planned.  The block remained the same but the layout changed after I pieced all the blocks and put them up on the design wall.  I liked it well enough, but then the "What if...." muse in my brain started whispering to me--and then she started shouting at me.  (You have a muse, too, you just have to listen for her.)  The name changed because the fabric/precuts I ended up with were not what I went to the shop to buy.  :-)

Paper Chains (in progress)

In short, don't sell yourself short:  you ARE creative, if you let yourself just play.  Let ideas percolate.  Don't worry about whether someone else is going to like your design, just do it.    I have complete faith and confidence in your creativity!

Ten for Ten

I'm 10 for 10 on my 10 for 10 challenge! 

A few weeks ago I challenged myself to design 10 quilts from 10" squares.  (All right, I already had a couple of designs completed, and one pattern published, with another in the works.)

I confess that I actually designed 15 or 20 quilts over the course of those weeks, but I decided it would be nice to actually LIKE all the designs, so it took some time and I learned a few more things to put in my designing toolbox.  You likely have learned other things, or things diametrically opposed to what I found works for me.  Then again, maybe these same things won't work for me next week.  That's the fun of designing, isn't it?

Here are 3 methods I used to get at the initial designs:

1) Pull out some 10" squares, cut them up and sew them in different ways.  Or, sew them and cut them up in different ways.  Putz.  Play. Toss them out and start again.

2) Start with a design in EQ, and then try to figure out how to piece it.  This one can be rather fun, but it can also be rather frustrating.  I'm pretty much math- capable but when you start doing seams on top of seams on top of seams on top of inserts on top of diagonal seams, well....then it's off to method #1.  Pull out the squares and just start putzing away on them until it comes out as you envisioned it--or something close to it.

3) Picture something in your head, then try to make it work using either method 1 or method 2.  What you see in your head at 3 a.m. does not necessarily translate into a usable or attractive end.  Sometimes it's just ghastly. 

Some of the time it works out just as you planned, and sometimes it doesn't, but even then a little more hacking, er, cutting and sewing yields a serendipitous prize.  I won't show you the piece from the original thought process (I think it was merely dull, not ghastly) but here's what happened when I did some more cutting; it wasn't square because of the cutting, so I just kept make slices and inserts until it was square, and then did some rearranging.  These are test blocks, and don't necessarily use the fabrics I would choose for the end.   So, this is #7.2, after 7.1 alpha test (and beta, for that matter) failed:

 

I'm not sure what my next design challenge will be; half of my 10 for 10 designs are pieced now, and others will be pieced over the next few weeks.  But in the meantime, what shall the next challenge be?  Any ideas for me?

Designing: Autograph Quilt Block

There is probably an autograph quilt class, and perhaps a presentation, in my future and, while I will likely want to do some traditional autograph blocks, I'd also like to try my hand at some new designs.   Working through it will (hopefully) illustrate one of the processes I use for designing--so those quilters who tell me they aren't creative or designers can see that it's not a mysterious process, or one that requires a Rembrandt sort of brain. If I can do it, anyone can--it's a matter of confidence, a bit of quilting experience in order to know what might be easier to piece and, frankly, a whole lot of luck and trial-and-error!

So, let's see what we can do about designing an autograph quilt block.  In a previous post I shared what I look for in a signature/autograph block, but to review (because we'll keep referring to it
1) Bounded area for people to sign; we don't want them to have to know about leaving us a quarter-inch seam; even quilters forget.  :-)
2) As close to a rectangular shape for signing as possible.  Diamonds seem to be difficult, for example.
3) Large enough area to sign, so people don't feel intimidated, or worry about making a mistake because they aren't sure they'll be able to fit it in the space.
4) Symmetrical enough (at least unilaterally) that there isn't a "right side up" and "wrong side up. (All right, I added this one after I wrote the previous post.)
5) Easy enough to piece that the quilter won't lose her mind making many of them. (Yes, I added this one, too, after I started thinking about making 120 of the things.)
6) Stabilized signing area, so the fabric doesn't "squirrel" around on them when they're trying to sign.

So, let's get started.  (I'm using EQ6 to do the designing; couldn't live without it; thanks, Electric Quilt!)

Here's the basic setup I'm going to use:  it's designed to get started with basic criteria:  bounded signing area, symmetrical enough that it doesn’t matter if they sign it one way or the other, large enough area to sign, rectangular, easy enough to piece so that I can make a lot of them without losing my mind…So far, so good.  On we go!. (BTW, this is an 8" square I'm working with here, but it could be adjusted, if 1" doesn't seem large enough for signing.)

Continuing with the strip sort of design that the setup lines create, here's a block (with the center left plain, for signature). 

 It's all right as a design, and put into a quilt it has a certain graphic quality to it:

But can you imagine matching all those seams?  Ugh.   You could press seams on the top row one direction, and those on the bottom the other direction, but how can you ensure that someone won’t sign it “upside down”?  (You could strip-piece the rows, but those seams…!)  Still, maybe.. if you could figure out a way to make them sign “right side up.”

Let's go back to our basic starting point to adapt the theme a bit, so we don’t have to worry about matching seams. 

Adding a long strip means fewer seams to worry about matching; it's still symmetrical enough that someone can sign one way or the other, and we could do some strip piecing so it would still be pretty easy to crank out a lot of them.

As a quilt it's OK, but let's keep playing with it a bit.

I think it might be better if alternate blocks are rotated—assuming you’re okay with some signatures running up and down; I think it’s all right, but others may not like it.  

There’s a bit of a pinwheel design where the block corners meet.  So, we might consider doing all the corners in the same fabric or color—distinct from others in the quilt—so those pinwheels stand out as a secondary design.

Here that is, with corner pieces in black, and a black border to help pull that all together.  I kind of like that.  This is a maybe. (Sometimes designs grow on me, especially after I see them in fabric, instead of just “on paper.”  There’s just something about fabric, isn't there?)

So, that’s a possibility.  But back to playing.   What if it were more of an alternating long and short—a log cabin sort of effect?

This really isn't what I had in mind.  It looks only vaguely log cabin-y doesn’t it??  Sort of,  if you squint just right.   But it’s not entirely bad.  It actually would give us three places for people to sign, but one is twice is “tall” as the others. Maybe with some changes in strip widths, and possibly changing to 9” block, this might work.

Doesn’t do much for me, laid out in quilt, but at least the signatures would be the stars of the quilt!

It's better with alternate blocks rotated but, again, only if you're okay with half the signatures running up and down.

Here, also, you could do the corner strips in the same fabric, to accentuate the secondary pinwheel effect.

Sigh.  I like that one enough that I’m going to have to go back and work on adjusting the proportions  so the signature areas are at least the same height, if not the same length.  Or, I may be okay with it this way.  Actually, I kind of like it just as a modern sort of quilt.  Hmmm. Stay tuned for a pattern, probably!

  But first, another stab at making it more log-cabiny, with the proportions of this original block.

Not much of a change here; We’ll see if it makes enough difference in the quilt to make it worth piecing that one extra little square. (And, there is now just one spot for signatures.)

And in a quilt layout:

All right, well, not a real “wow” here; maybe if we rotate alternate blocks…

Not bad, and it could be a way to use up some scraps, especially those pesky 1-1/2” strips I’ve been cutting when I’ve had strips left over from previous projects.  If I want to make this as a scrap quilt, I could increase the block size so that the strips are a bit wider;  if they were cut at 2”, finish at 1-1/2” this would be a 12” block.

This could work; I like it.

But I’m still thinking about a version with 3 strips for signing—it would give us a bigger bang for our buck, at least where a signature block is concerned. So, back to the drawing board to design that so the signature spaces are the same height.  Wish me luck!  Diving back in....

And here it is, this time a 14” block.  That seems large for a signature block but you get three signatures per block, so I think that’s reasonable.. 

  I like this better as a signature block, but I think that if I were planning just a quilt (not for signatures) I might like the uneven sizes of the light spaces in the previous blocks.

Let’s test it against the criteria for a signature/autograph block: 

1) Bounded area for signing?  Check.

2) Rectangular(ish) shape for signatures?  Check.

3) Large enough area to sign?  Check.

4) Symmetrical, so there is no "upside down" when signing the block?  I guess you'd want all three signing  a block to sign in the same direction; maybe 3/4 Check, because there's at least one in every crowd?

5) Easy to piece, so many blocks can be made without driving the quilter crazy?  Check.

Looks good to me!  Now, down to the studio for the real test.  I'll report on that later. Do yo have suggestions for changes to the block to make it even better?