An Easy Way For You To Design

A Tessellated Quilt

A tessellated quilt uses a single shape repeated over and over to fill the space. You might think it would be hard to design a tessellating shape. But it's not.

There are several ways to do it. I'm going to show you my current favorite way.

Have You Sewn

An Interesting Border Lately?

You want your quilts to look their best. Right? So why would you dress them in drab uninteresting borders?

The right border can make a world of difference to a quilt. To prove this to you, I've taken some designs from my last 2 posts and added borders to them that are anything but plain.

If You Change Something Old,

You Get Something New

Yesterday I added an outside design to blocks with 3x3 grids and got new blocks with 5x5 grids.

SaraJoan liked the idea but used a block with a 4x4 grid and got new blocks with 6x6 grids. She also put borders (which I like) on her ideas to make them quilts. To see what she came up with go to Iridescent weasels and other beasties.

Another Way

You Can Design A New Block

Using An Old One

Admit it, you've always wanted to design a block. Other quilters do, so why not you? What's holding you back is not knowing where to start. Well, that's not a problem any longer because I'm about to show you any easy way to design a new block by starting with an old one.

Paired Blocks #18

You Really Should Try Mixing

Drunkard's Path Blocks

With Other Blocks

Drunkard's Path is an interesting block that is very different from most bocks. Usually it is used in combination with other Drunkard's Path blocks. Which is too bad, because combining it with a variety of blocks can result in some unique designs.

Keep Trying

Sometimes it's a good idea to leave a design you've been working on and come back to it later. This gives your subconscious a chance to mull things over and come up with some new suggestions.

Try Something New

I spend a lot of time in this blog trying to convince you to try designing a quilt or two. I guess if I want you to try something new, it behooves me to try something new once in a while too.

Is Designing Quilts Easy?

It’s a fair question. Is designing quilts easy? A lot of people think it is anything but easy. They are convinced it’s something they could never do.

What do These 4 Blocks

Have In Common?

These 4 blocks, although different from each other, have a similar structure. If you can identify that structure, you can use it to design blocks of your own.

Look What Tracy Did

With a Faux Drunkard's Path Block

Tracy suggested that a Drunkard's Path block could be made using straight lines instead of curves. I played with that idea in my post yesterday. Tracy played with it too and created the quilt design above, using her Faux Drunkard's Path block and a Snowball block.

Paired Blocks #17

What If You Combine

Faux Drunkard's Path Blocks

With Snowball Blocks?

There's more than one way to skin a cat; and there's more than one way to create quilt designs. I have no idea why you would want to skin a cat. But I know a lot of good reasons to design quilts. My favorite is - because it's fun.

Bear's Paw Meets

Dove In The Window

I recently came upon Dove In the Window. It's a block that has a lot in common with Bear's Paw.

Offset Block #10

What Happens When You Offset

Balkan Puzzle Blocks?

I am enjoying winter and if it wants to hang around, that's fine by me. But for some reason, when I look at a Balkan Puzzle block colored like this I think of flowers and I want to plant a garden.

What Happens

When You Start Playing?

Yesterday I didn't think much of this design. I said it was a bit repetitive.

I also said that when you start playing with quilt designs it's hard to stop.

What Happens

When You Start Playing?

Yesterday I showed you how these 2 blocks were used to create a tessellation. I couldn't stop from playing with them. I wanted to see what else was possible.

A Complex Tessellation

For You To Ponder

This quilt is a tessellation; it's made by repeating a single shape over and over. It's called Anthracite/Snowflake and was sewn by my wife Linda and designed by me. I didn't start out to design a tessellating pattern; it just happened. How it happened surprised me.

A Simple Tessellation

For You To Ponder

This is my quilt Okotoks/Sheep Creek; it's a simple tessellation. A tessellation is a jigsaw puzzle in which all the pieces are the same shape.

Paired Blocks #16

What Else Can You Do

With A Drunkard's Path Block

It's easy to think that Drunkard's Path blocks can be used for only one purpose - to make Drunkard's Path quilts. But you can take a Drunkard's Path block and use it in combination with other blocks to make a variety of different quilts.

Paired Blocks #15

Look 

What Elsie Can Do

With A Drunkard's Path  Block

This quilt design is by Elsie Montgomery of Elsie Quilts. She calls it Drunken Stars. She saw what I did with Drunkard's Path and Friendship Star blocks and wanted to see what she could do.

Paired Blocks #14

What Else Can You Do

With A Drunkard's Path Block?

There are quite a few quilt designs that are made using just a Drunkard's Path block. But why use just a Drunkard's Path block? Why not combine it with other blocks?