There is no “set” way to write a quilt pattern.  There are many variations of what quilt professionals think are wonderful patterns that they have put together.  I would guess that in the early days of quilt pattern writing, the professionals emulated the clothing patterns that you purchased in a store, fabric shop or catalog.  As time has gone on, and people began writing more and more quilt patterns and received more and more feedback on what consumers wanted or needed to see in a quilt pattern, they began altering their personal courses to write their patterns so other quilters could put their quilt designs together easier.

There are a few books and resoruces available online to give you direction on what works and what doesn’t, but until you write your first pattern and have folks test it out – you really do not know how well it is written (and in this instance, a well-written pattern means all of the instructions are clear and concise and easily followed by a quilter).  Unfortunately, you are also writing your pattern TO your test audience – who may or may not be new quilters. 

This blog post comes from reading Facebook one day and seeing a very frustrated professional quilter purchase an online pattern for a baby quilt and the pattern had 15 pages to it.  FIFTEEN pages for a BABY QUILT!  What??? 

As a side note here, I had to take some training for the Girl Scouts a few years ago to become a facilitator (aka trainer) of Girl Scout leaders.  I have to say, the section on learning styles that we covered was amazingly helpful.  I was taught the different learning styles we possess and I have used that information over and over again in my quilt pattern writing.

My rule of thumb is to ALWAYS write to my lowest common customer denominator, that being a beginning quilter.  I also try to leave as many “words” off of my patterns as possible, because *most* right-brained people are very visual in their learning style.  Some words are necessary, especially the amount of fabric you need and the cuts of the fabric.  But, when it comes to putting a quilt pattern together – I just use a program to draw the step-by-step instructions on the paper.  If a beginning quilter can follow from 1 – 2 –  3, then they can put together one of my patterns.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of professionals put the entire pattern on a huge single page.  While this may save paper, it’s also very cumbersome to me to try to find a space in my small sewing room to have the pattern handy while I am putting something together.  If too close, it gets in the way of my work.  If too far away, I either cannot see it from sitting at my machine or I have to get up and down all of the time to refer back to it.  I’m not a big fan of these types of patterns – with the exception of applique patterns that have large pieces for templates.

I doubt there will ever be a universally accepted way of writing a pattern, like there is for an essay or even a resume.  Too many creative quilt folks are free spirits and want to do their thing so they stand out in a crowd.  I, for one, am not worried about my pattern standing out – I want a quilter to be able to easily quilt one of my patterns so that their creation stands out in a crowd.  THAT is the ultimate goal of being a successful pattern writer!