Saturday, January 3, 2015

A New Venture for A New Year

For some time now I have been toying with the notion of starting a company to publish my quilt patterns. The only problem is, I have to carve some time out of my busy schedule, in order to develop them. It is quite a bit of work to get a design out of your head onto paper in a format that people can follow without difficulty, no matter their level of sewing experience.

I have been teaching myself to use Electric Quilt 7,  primarily to draw applique designs, so far. Next, I am going to learn how to use Adobe InDesign so I can create templates for my patterns and then convert them to PDF files. I need to work on a website once I have my patterns created. And spend time sewing my prototypes! I definitely have my work cut out for me!

I also want to integrate die cutting into my designing. I am going to use Sizzix dies and their Big Shot  Pro die cutting system to create some of my pieces. I sent Sizzix some files of quilt block images and ideas for dies that can be combined in many ways to create applique blocks.

My first ideas for blocks are based on Mexican tiles and pottery. I really love the folk imagery and the  way they combine motifs and pattern in so many amazing variations. I am planning on designing at least one block a week using my motifs. We will see how many variations I can come up with!