Design and Make your own quilt
Posted by Karla Menaugh on Mar 2nd 2021
In her newest book, Design, Make, Quilt Modern, Heather Black offers easy-to-understand tips and ideas for designing and making your own quilt.
By taking a look at why she made certain design decisions in her own beautiful quilts, Heather shows you how to find inspiration (and what to do with it), ways to make the design more exciting, how to choose fabrics, and how to finish with a custom quilting pattern.
Heather's techniques start with taking inventory of your own likes and skills, keeping a notebook full of design ideas, and experimenting with children's paints to look at color. As you go further into the design process, she shows you how to take your quilt design from ordinary to dynamic by telling a story, creating movement and depth, and using techniques such as the rule of thirds, an "S" curve, and a grid.
There are times to use patterns, too—when you are learning a new technique, or you find a quilt that you just love and want to make. You can use a pattern but experiment with different colors and quilting designs, or even integrate some elements of the pattern with new elements for a design unique to you. Heather includes patterns for 4 modern quilts (including Grounded, shown above) for you to make your own.
Evolution of the Grounded design
Grounded
Heather's techniques start with taking inventory of your own likes and skills, keeping a notebook full of design ideas, and experimenting with children's paints to look at color. As you go further into the design process, she shows you how to take your quilt design from ordinary to dynamic by telling a story, creating movement and depth, and using techniques such as the rule of thirds, an "S" curve, and a grid.
Palm Fronds stages of design
There are times to use patterns, too—when you are learning a new technique, or you find a quilt that you just love and want to make. You can use a pattern but experiment with different colors and quilting designs, or even integrate some elements of the pattern with new elements for a design unique to you. Heather includes patterns for 4 modern quilts (including Grounded, shown above) for you to make your own.
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