A New Quilt From Start to Finish - Chapter 1 Design

Most of the quilts you’ve seen on my blog are finished or in process. What I haven’t done yet is to document a quilt from idea, through design, stitching, quilting to completed quilt. I am just getting ready to start a quilt at a workshop, so I thought I would take the opportunity to document the entire process.

A while back an intriguing email arrived from Judel Niemeyer Buls about Quiltworx University at Thimble Towne in Bakersfield California. One of the quilt options for this workshop was an exclusive design called Cattail Mixer, meaning the it was a mix of several different patterns based on the Judy Niemeyer Cattails in the Meadow pattern. I immediately forwarded the email to a few friends to see if anyone wanted to join me at the workshop. No takers, so I decided to go on my own.

So here we are six months later and I am sitting in a hotel room in Bakersfield California waiting for the workshop to start. The process so far has been unique. Instead of going to a fabric shop and auditioning fabrics, my normal modus operandi, I designed the quilt on Quiltster.

This process of quilt designing on a computer is great in theory, but was way outside of my comfort zone. Not only did I have to choose between different centers and borders, I had to choose fabrics. I am one of those people who likes to pull 15 bolts from the shelves, lay them out and then choose 2 or 3 fabrics that work well together. Then I fill in.

Designing Cattail Mixer Queen was different. I had a couple of main designs to choose from. I choose cattails because it reminded me of my childhood - as we drove around beautiful California on weekend trips, my mom would ask my dad to stop so she could collect dried flowers, among them are cattails. They had to be just right - too “ripe” and they would explode. I don’t remember if there was a down side to not ripe enough. Mom would spray them with hairspray to a keep them intake as much as possible. She had taken a flower arranging class and make beautiful arrangements for our table and home.

I already had a subscription to Quiltster so I hopped on and got to work. For section A, the center section, I had the choice of 9 star points. Look at all those options, how was I ever going to choose? I wanted some action, but not too much. One iteration of the design looks much different from 8! So after trying out several of them, I finally decided on 84270. It gives the center a bit of interest.

Section B next. I knew I wanted cattails because, well, that was the name of the quilt and it had sparked fond memories. But there were 6 options so I could make another one later that looks totally different.

Section C was the on point inner border. Again, lots of cool choices!  I tired several and finally settled on 10713. A series of framed pointed triangles.

Outer borders, section D, came with 4 options. After auditioning, 96405 won the day.

So now I have a design and it’s time to work with color and fabric. That comes next.

Curious about designing with Quiltster?These small screen shots don't do it justice, so check out their intro video here!