Friday Quilt Class: Reading the Pattern and Getting Started

Be Prepared

Before you start cutting or sewing

you should read your pattern all the

way through and familiarize yourself

with what you will be doing.

As a pattern designer I am always

looking for color and pattern inspiration.

I am always sketching block ideas

on graph paper and I love to use

this standard graph paper composition

book to sketch out blocks and patterns.

I do use quilting and publishing

software but for me, it always

starts out by hand.

It is important to invest in good

quality rulers, cutting mat and

rotary cutters.  I'm not a big gadget

person, I'd rather have a few very

good tools and I find I can make

almost anything with them.

Before cutting begins it is important

to properly square up your fabric.

Since this is difficult to describe I

will refer you to this link on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcpzwJMVTbc

Once your fabric is squared, you are

ready to begin cutting but first

read on for an important tip.

In my patterns I give you cutting

instructions to make one block.

I would hope you would do this with

every pattern you use.  Our first fabric

choices are not always good ones and

I would hate to see you cut out fabric

for an entire quilt and then find out

you don't like one or more of the fabrics.

That is a waste of time and money,

especially with the ever rising cost

of quilt fabrics these days.

Look at the photo above, the top block

was the first attempt, the fabrics looked

great together but once they were in the

block there were problems.  The red cherry

print was too large a print and it didn't

complete the frame which is what I was

going for in the design.  The yellow was

not intense enough to emphasize the

compass points.  The second attempt

was much better and made the block work.

Once you have decided on the fabrics you

want you can determine how many of

each block you need and do the simple

multiplication to see how many pieces of

each block you need and cut the rest of

the needed fabric for the quilt.

This was the first time I worked

with batiks,  I stayed away from

batiks because I often found them

to be too muddy for my taste. 

But after helping a friend pick out

some fabric I decided to work with

them and made this piece.  I was

horrified!  I found it to be garish and

hid it away in a bin.  I just found it recently

and put it on my design wall and now, after

looking at it for a few months I like it.

Maybe sometimes we just have to

give it time...