I make very few quilt projects from a pattern. I like taking something I like and planning how it will go as I work. The first piece I did this with was a wallhanging/lap size piece that I started with the main idea of a heart shaped wreath. From there I just put other things together as I went along. I did use the same fabrics throughout so there is continuity. Another piece I call my 'Eclectic Quilt'. I took blocks and pieces of old work from my great grandmother and orphan blocks and put them together with groups of 2" blocks. The borders contained them and I love how it turned out. I am putting together a handkerchief quilt now. I am quilting the squares as I go by hand and will put them together with whatever sets of squares needed when I get to that point. I have never thought of myself as creative (as in thinking up a pattern all on my own) but, I so love creating a quilt by the seat of my pants! :lol: How do you approach your quilt projects?

I think it is safe to say you are a designer. I usually start with something I see and do my version of it. I often change the size, colors and setting of blocks. I believe in using what you have. My quilts are designed to sleep under. They would win no contests anywhere but are made with love and used to keep warm. Happy Quilting:)

I have to see a pattern, but then I usually can make it my own by small changes. I'm just not very good at coming up with original designs.

ditto!

I work this way too. I always thought I was one of those people who didn't like people telling me what to do-lol. I like your explaination a lot better!

I like to look at a quilt and try to make it with my design. Written Pattern instructions just confuse me. I'm more of a look at see kind of person, in other words show me a quilt and I will do my best to make it.

I'm confessing here what I rarely have before......my fabric talks to me. It tells me when to cut, how to cut, where to store, what will go with it (sort of a best friends pact), even how large it wants to be after I get to sewing.

Too often I find that the fabric just didn't like sitting next to such-and-such on the shelf and wanted to be attached to this-other-one more permanently.

I usually start with a picture, a specific gift to make, a pattern I've drawn on graph paper, something I saw at guild, or just a need to fondle (seems that happens all too often - wonder what *that* says about me along with hearing my fabrics talk??!).

I cut and sew, and piece into rows, and then into sections, and then it often sits for a while until the fabric starts talking again. In that case, too often it doesn't give a hoot whether it's in a finished top or quilt, just that it gets to hug its friend in a UFO box somewhere. My mother never let ME do that with MY friends and beaus! But who can tell most of the time which fabrics are male and which are female, right?

When I'm really desperate to "just do something", I might open the "strip" boxes -- one for 1.5", another for 2", another for 2.5 ", etc. -- and start sewing strips of contrasting values together. And then those go into another box of "sewn-together-strips".... :?

And sometimes all I do is re-organize the stash. That's sort of where I am right now. The room is jammed full of fabric, tops, quilts and boxes for the soldiers and it's hard to get motivated for the narrow path through.

Jan in VA

I love to design quilts too, that is my favorite part of quilt making :D:D:D

Jan in Va, I regognize some of the same feelings you describe and some don't ring a bell. But then, I am sure I have other feelings or observations that are other than what you have talked about. Isn't it exciting to see how we are all different and unique in our approach to the same things?!?!

I have found that ifthe fabric does not talk to me then it goes back in the stash. Tomorrow I may pick up that same piece and it tells me it wants out and I end up doing something even if it was not what it was originally planned for.
The past few days I picked up an UFO top and put it all together I made it into a memory quilt with the octogan flowers done by paper piecing. Added names of family members below the flowers along with the birthdates. One sister is gone along with our parents but to make it a happy quilt I left those dates off.