How To Draw A Quilt Design

I enjoy each step of the quilt-making process, but the hardest part for me is figuring out what design to use for the quilting. Today'south blog post is all about how to audition quilt designs. This will help brand the quilting part an easier and more fun process for you.

How to audition quilt designs before quilting your quilt @ The Crafty Quilter

Software programs

I recently tried using a software program, Microsoft Publisher, to audition some quilt designs. This is a keen manner to test out a quilting thought in lodge to see if it will look good on your quilt without doing whatever sewing. For my recent disappearing nine-patch quilt, I used the Publisher software to audition diagonal filigree lines. Start, I imported the quilt prototype and resized it to fit the page. (I used a digital image that I saved from EQ8). Then I clicked on insert > shapes > line and used my mouse to insert diagonal lines where I wanted them.

Using Microsoft Publisher to audition quilt designs @ The Crafty Quilter — Auditioning quilt designs using Microsoft Publisher

Once I inserted a line, I formatted the line past clicking on format > shape outline > dashes and then selected the dashed line I wanted. You could skip this step and just leave the lines solid.

I love orange pare quilting and I thought this would work really well for the quilt too. It's based on a grid design, and it's actually a bunch of inter-connecting circles. My attempt on the estimator (beneath) is non perfect, simply I become a pic of what orangish peels might look like. This was washed by inserting a agglomeration of circles and sizing them appropriately. You can group shapes together and copy them, and then you don't have to insert so many individual shapes.

I'm certain there are many other photo editing and analogy software programs that would work just equally well, if not meliorate than Microsoft Publisher. This is what I accept and it works for me. If you have EQ8 (Electric Quilt software), it also allows you to insert quilting motifs onto a digital quilt.

Another tool for testing out designs is a digital illustration App called ProCreate. I can import an image onto my Apple tree iPad Pro and use ProCreate to draw quilting designs onto a quilt or a quilt block with an Apple Pencil. It'due south but similar cartoon on smooth newspaper. The App itself isn't that expensive, simply the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil will gear up you dorsum quite a few dollars.

Using ProCreate to audition quilt designs @ The Crafty Quilter

Here are a few quick attempts that I made (and not very well done), but it'due south just a sketch and you go the thought.

Articulate vinyl

For those of us that are non figurer savvy, in that location are other options. You lot can apply clear vinyl or a clear plastic page protector and a wet erase mark. You need to exist conscientious that you don't get the mark on your quilt summit.

TIP: I attached bluish painter's tape to the edges of the vinyl so I could see the boundaries improve. I also wrote "this side up" along the edges so I didn't accidentally place the dirty side of the vinyl against the cloth.

Use clear vinyl to audition quilt designs and more ideas @ The Crafty Quilter — Auditioning quilt designs with clear vinyl

Identify the clear material on superlative of your quilt and draw your design onto it. This works for testing out stencils also. If yous accept Crayola Ultra Clean Washable Markers, (the aforementioned ones that I gave bad reviews for marker fabric with) this is a great place to apply them.

Extra quilt blocks

If you have any extra quilt blocks, you could use them as a test sample. Make a quilt sandwich with one and try out a design. This also gives you exercise for the real quilting!

Inspiration for quilt designs

One of my favorite things to do is look through quilting books for inspiration (and simply for the fun of it.) Just books are too a not bad way to get quilting ideas for your adjacent quilt!

2 of my favorite books are The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting past Angela Walters and Christa Watson, and Free-motion Quilting Thought Book past Amanda Murphy. Magazines are also a great resource for quilting designs.

Magazines are a great resource for ideas and inspiration

If you're familiar with Pinterest, yous'll already know at that place is a whole earth of ideas and inspirations for quilting. I take a Free Motion Quilting Pinterest board that is full of beautiful quilting ideas that I've collected over the years. Be careful, Pinterest is a rabbit hole and yous never know where yous'll end upwardly or call up how you got there!

I hope that y'all give some of these ideas a try the adjacent time you lot're set up to quilt your projection. If you know of a trick that I missed, delight share in the comments. Happy quilting!