I am one of those quilt designers who needs to make a somewhat spiritual connection between the quilt I am designing and the fabric line or person I am designing the quilt for.  I look at a lot of quilts and think they’re gorgeous, of course, but when it comes to my own designing, I need to have that connection that the fabric or person “fits” with the quilt design I’ve come up with.

For instance, my “Pendleton Inspired” 2013 BOM quilt design was completed in 2006, but until the Moda Marblehead fabrics came out, I didn’t find a fabric line that ‘fit’ with the design.

My “Chocolate Cake and Roses” 2013 six-month BOM was inspired by the fabric – Moda’s Double Chocolate.  The center block in this design is called “Chocolate Cake” and each block in the design is some variation of that center block; and the ‘roses’ part of the name is because the flowers in the fabric are roses:

When making a quilt for a person, again, I have to find a connection between the quilt I design and the person the quilt is designed for.  Here are a couple of examples:

This high school graduation quilt was for a second-cousin (by marriage) of a young man who loves music and played not only in his high school band but also plays a bass guitar.  I had his sister trace his guitar and I made a template of the tracing and made a raw-edge applique of his guitar right in the center of the quilt – then surrounded it with the purple (one of his high school colors) and made it pop with the bright green fabric.

This quilt was also specifically made for another high school graduate:

This young man not only graduated from high school, he also earned his Boy Scout Eagle award while he was a senior in high school.  Hence the letters in the center of the fabric are made from official B.S.A. quilt fabrics and the whole quilt is highlighted with fabrics that make up the quilt but don’t detract from the important center of his quilt.

Not all quilt designers design the same way – especially those who have their own fabric lines and/or those who compete in quilt competitions.  Many design a pattern that is for beginners, others design based on the type of quilting they love doing. 

Me?  I design for the love of a quilted heart connection using the fabrics, blocks and special people and/or special occasions as my inspiration to make a beautiful, lasting quilted memory!