How I plan my quilts (Spoiler: I mostly don’t)

Over the years, I’ve often been asked how I plan my quilts. Do I have drawings? Do I plan my colours in general, or for the quilt blocks? What exactly is my design process?

The short answer is that I don’t plan, not really. Usually I pick a block design and figure out how many blocks to make for a certain size, then I sew enough blocks and arrange them into a pleasing (enough) design. I use what I have made and that's it.

For smaller pieces, the designs tend to grow organically. In this post, I share four examples on my processes.

1. Starting with a flimsy idea

Here is an example or my creative quilting process from 2013 when I created a mini quilt for a competition. The theme was “Patchwork Dance”.

My whole work was based on a flimsy idea of the graphics used to describe dance steps. I’d also seen an image of a quilt where multicoloured and white strips alternated, and decided to use a similar approach for the surrounding area.

I had a vision of joyful, salsa-like colours and took out a bunch of suitable fabrics.

Then I made a drawing:

I used the drawing as a template and cut out shoeprints from blue and red remnants, which I attached onto a backround fabric using fusible interfacing.

The first framing strips were green.

It was important that the strips would not look too uniform – yet the edges had to be straight. The ruler and cutter were constantly in use. Because it was a lot of work to make the strips, I made them wider towards the outer edges.

The first picture of the surface. I must have taken the picture on an overcast day, or in the evening. Back in the day, my camera did not auto-correct, and many of the photos from that time are off focus.

hen, the creation had to be quilted. I used small hand stitches to ensure that the shoeprints would not come loose. I also refined the heel area of the blue shoeprints with a few black stitches.

Then, I added the movement lines in black thread. Finally, I ran a machine stitch around the dance step area to make it stand out more.

did not quilt the step area – only the movement lines – because I wanted to keep the area clean as a dance floor.

The next part was hard. I had no ideas on how to quilt the rest of the quilt. But because this was due for a competition, I had to quilt it.

For the first round of multicoloured strips, I used free-motion loops. Single-line loops did not fill the area enough, so I added echoing around the loops. It looked stupid but I went with it.

n the white strips, I stitched a jumpy double line. I don’t know where that idea came from, but I was pretty happy with how this quilting style looked.

Even though I thought I had plenty of time to finish my mini quilt, time got the better of me. I had to work quickly and steadily, and could not stop even to take more pictures.

One of the multi-coloured strips got a stipple quilting. And I didn’t have time to stitch jumpy lines on the second round of white and had to settle with straight line quilting.

The sunny patch in the upper corner got its flame-shaped(ish) stitches in yellow and gold.

Even when I had completed the quilting, I still had to sew in a label, bind the quilt, and eeeugh – sew in the hanging sleeve. I barely made it before the final deadline: I posted the mini quilt to the competition on the very last admission date.

This was the only image I had of the finished quilt until I got it back waaay later – because my creation won second price, yayy!

Here is a slightly better shot of this mini quilt that I called “Tico, tico!” You can see the rosette that it won – back in 2014.

2. Working with what I happen to have at hand

Next, I’ll tell you in detail how this piece came about:

You may wonder how on earth anyone can come up with something that looks interesting to say the least! Here’s how:

I glance at the shelf where I’ve collected a small stack of scraps that are smaller than a fat quarter. The fabrics are all such that could be used together in a project. Oh look, there is a piece that is just the right shade of green. “Well, I don’t have the heart to use this lovely piece all up. Instead, I’ll use… this much” – streep [uses the rotary cutter].

”Gosh, here’s a piece of striped fabric on the table, I’ve left it lying about after I finished sewing the backing for the latest quilt. And orange goes here. It doesn’t go well but it goes. Once I add this piece, the green bit will be big enough for the purpose. I’ll just shorten it a little” – streep [uses the rotary cutter].

“There is a small bit of green fabric left. Oh there are these striped pieces on the table too! I’ll sew them together” – purr [sews on the machine].

“Darn, the piece isn’t tall enough. But this patterned fabric piece is rather wide, and just tall enough to even things out” – purr [sews on the machine].

”Why, the piece still isn’t tall enough. Do I have any strips left? Oh good, I do” – purr [sews on the machine].

”Groan, this can’t be true! I still need something to make this wide enough. Oh here’s a strip. But no, it doesn’t look good. However, if I turn it reverse side up, it looks much better. I’ll just use it” – purr [sews on the machine].

”And now that I have a leftover piece left from trimming, I’ll turn it into a pocket. I wonder… if this pile [leafs through a third stash pile on the sewing table] has a piece for the pocket lining … oh well this turquoise batik will have to do”.

I admit, this would have worked better as a video, but back in 2014, that just was not possible.

3. Designing as I go

Another characteristic of my quilt making process is that I don’t cut out all of my pieces at one time. I usually design and sew only a few blocks at a time, then cut more pieces and design and sew the next couple of ones. I would get bored by repetition, so this way I avoid that.

For my Gone with the Wind quilt, I made four blocks at a time – and implemented a few ideas on the fly, not having planned them at all. Firstly, the quilt was supposed to be sort of light blue, but other colours crept in.

Secondly, I decided that I would arbitrarily make the corners of some blocks bright red instead of black. I did not plan how many would be red – I trusted that I would be able to use all blocks in my final design.

Thirdly, I had to add rather a wide border to make the quilt big enough (and avoid having to make more blocks than I felt like making).

And finally, to make the border more interesting, I continued the diamond shapes onto the border. The diamond shapes at the sides added a surprising amount of oomph to my quilt top!

I named the finished quilt Gone with the Wind / Tuulen viemää because of the windy-looking quilting pattern that Soile in Töölön tilkkupaja implemented on the quilt. It is 135 cm x 179 cm in size (around 53" x 70,5")

4. Leftovers as a resource

This is an example of my process results when I use scraps and leftovers from recent projects.

Because I used the stitch and flip method to create the corners for the Gone with the Wind quilt, I ended up with quite a few bonus half-square triangles, which I later used for a large zippered bag:

TÄHÄN VIELÄ SE ETTÄ TEEN TARPEEKSI BLOKKEJA JA SOMMITTELEN NE. This is how most of my quilts come into life: starting from a vague idea and often shaped by the fabrics and colours that I happen to catch my eye. And even more often, inspired by the leftovers from other projects. For me, this is exactly what keeps quilting so interesting.