Quilt Panel Adventure: Design a Legendary Layout

Cyndi McChesney is a seasoned quilting expert with over 40 years of experience turning fabric, panels, and big ideas into one-of-a-kind quilts. In this course, she invites students to transform a favorite solo quilt panel into a custom design, rather than just sewing on “whatever border fits.” Students learn to see panels with a designer’s eye: what to feature, what to trim, and how to build a quilt that tells a cohesive story from center to edge.

Inside the course, students learn how to square up tricky or “wonky” panels, decide which elements to keep or edit out, and use a graphed grid to plan a unique layout. Cyndi covers when to trim and when to use coping strips, how to do the math for those strips, and how to measure, cut, and sew them so the panel plays nicely with the chosen border size. From there, students explore how to choose traditional quilt blocks or appliqué motifs that relate to their panel and how to break borders into blocks and spacers that support the design instead of quilting against the grain.

Cyndi also shows how to handle partial blocks in corners, experiment with multiple borders, and use spacers and narrow frames to pull everything together into a polished, original quilt. The heart of the class is a true choose your own elements adventure, as students mix and match blocks, motifs, and borders to create a design that is uniquely theirs. Throughout the class, students may optionally submit their design ideas, math sheets, and graphed layouts for Cyndi’s personal feedback, adding a bonus layer of guidance for those who want it. By the end, each student will have a custom panel quilt well underway, along with the skills, tools, and confidence to turn future panels into true main characters instead of background extras.