mlsa3 Posted March 24, 2015 Report Share Posted March 24, 2015 Morning Ladies and Gents When you are looking at a quilt for the first time and planning the designs, do you look at the quilt overall and plan your designs or do you break it down by sections or even by blocks? I know that all of the designs must compliment the entire quilt. I know an overall design or pantograph would take care of most of this but you can't always do an overall or pantograph. On some quilts when I first look at it it's just so overwhelming to me to try and plan a design. Any suggestions? Thanks David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primitive1 Posted March 24, 2015 Report Share Posted March 24, 2015 David, I like to hang a quilt top up a few days before I load it while I am working on the previous one so that I can be thinking about it....sometimes something just jumps out at me that screams quilt like this...other times I just am not sure what to quilt....I usually have some kind of plan when I load a quilt, but lots of times as I am quilting I change my mind about what I am quilting... It helps to use a piece of clear plastic that you can lay over the quilt and doodle with an erasable marker to "audition" ideas on a quilt - but do be sure to have some blue painters tape or something bright that you will see along the edges as you do not want to accidentally write on a customer quilt... Other times, I use an app on my iPad where I take a picture of the quilt top and then look at pictures of quilting on pinterest and then doodle on the iPad picture, if you end up with something you like, then you can save the picture or print it out and that gives you a plan to follow as once I get half way through a quilt then I have trouble remembering exactly what I did in the top borders... Don't let the custom quilting that others do overwhelm you, every quilt does not need to be a show quilt and does not need to be quilted very heavily. If you are quilting for customers, talk to them and see what they are envisioning for their quilt and how they will use it - that will help with the quilting design that you choose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffq-lar Posted March 24, 2015 Report Share Posted March 24, 2015 A familiarity with piecing helps. If you can pick out the block, you can plan the quilting within it. A similar or complimentary design in the second block or the sashings works well. I love to look for and maybe accent a secondary design--like the curve that happens with Storm at Sea. Sometimes the neatest place to plan quilting to accent an area happens in the intersection of the sashings. If it helps, cut a window out of cardstock to isolate the many separate blocks and sashing. Then you can view just one part to decide on designs to stitch. Plan it on clear plastic as Vicki suggested so you can see how the designs in one block meet and mesh with the ones in the adjacent block. Samplers are great fun because of the practice you get with different blocks. With a mid-priced custom I try to add a design element to each block that can be used in all the rest. Leaves placed in piecing and used throughout the top are great for floral fabrics and can be easily used in sashings and borders. If you have a sampler with a secondary chain block, stitching the blocks within the piecing and placing a feathered wreath in the chain block is a pretty treatment. CCs are always a go-to design and can be embellished to a higher pricing level by added/more dense stitching. When you look at a top, the places where the quilting will show are easy to find and spots that should be accented. The areas that blend (where the quilting doesn't stand out but only adds texture) get even, but maybe not exciting, stitching. I concentrate on deciding on a design for those open areas. Here is a link to a quilt with the ideal place where some "wow" quilting will show. This quilt was huge and the plain block was about 9". The rest of the top was stitched with CCs. She had a big floral print in the border and the wreath brought the eye into the piecing, which had lots of solids and tiny-scale prints. https://www.flickr.com/photos/larech/16612482848/ If you're looking for inspiration, go to Pinterest. Type in the pattern--like Log Cabin or Irish Chain and be prepared to see some gorgeous stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primitive1 Posted March 25, 2015 Report Share Posted March 25, 2015 Linda, I like that leafy wreath you did! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwilt-n-Deb Posted March 25, 2015 Report Share Posted March 25, 2015 I loved the leaf wreath also, it's really nice!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoseCity Quilter Posted March 25, 2015 Report Share Posted March 25, 2015 I have used either approach, depending on my time and the quilt..... Sometimes when I am away fom my machine I spend some time planning and look at the whole quilt. I like it when I do this, as I spend very little precious time at my machine planning my quilting. However, it is not my most common approach.... Usually I load a quilt, thinking about it as I load it (and like Vicki I often get it out before I am ready for it and start thinking about it) I often get an idea of one area, start that area and the rest builds on that idea.....I try and repeat design elements in several places in the quilt..... I think there is no right or wrong approach, just a different road to get from point A to point B..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunningThreads Posted March 25, 2015 Report Share Posted March 25, 2015 David All good advise above. Sometimes you just don't see it right away so hang it up and it will come to you. Brenda had a couple of quilts arrive here recently from a pattern designer she does work for. One quilt all two inch squares many different fabrics (screams panto right) had a note pinned to the top to call the designer and that usually means she wants it custom quilted. Once we hung the top up and got some distance away we could see the pattern and understand why she needed it custom and a plan was suggested when she called the customer. Nigel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pumpkinpatchquilter Posted March 25, 2015 Report Share Posted March 25, 2015 I think there are many ways to approach design and I honestly don't do it the same way for every quilt. For a client custom quilt I like to take an image (if I can) ahead of time and draw out a plan with my Wacom Bamboo Tablet (I actually bought it from someone here on the board...) - I will draw different designs in each block to get a feel for how they might look - and secondary designs that might be created. I think a lot has to do with the feeling of the quilt (modern, traditional, formal, relaxed) and I also take into account what the client likes and dislikes. I think even in posting on these types of forums we often forget that client preferences may have come into play on any given quilt and had a lot to do with why a quilter did or didn't do something. For my own quilts I like a lot of open space for quilting and probably less piecing than most of my client quilts. My passion is in the quilting...and a lot of times a quilt top is just a "canvas" of sorts for me to quilt. With lots of negative space I'll often start by breaking it up into sections with shapes that fit the flow of the quilt...circles, slivers, half circles, squares, ovals...whatever the quilt sort of calls for. Then I go in again to each individual shape and start breaking up those sections. It's a real play on densities when you start to break things up in that way. Then I start planning fills - a lot of times I have an idea for a few fills but don't actually know what's going to go in the final quilt until I'm faced with it there on the frame! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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