You can imagine the look on his
face when I said I didn't care about all the bells and whistles, I wanted to design
a quilt and that meant draw, colour, change your mind, flip rotate, put on point,
change your mind and flip back, add borders and so on. He told me he learned a
lot he didn't know about the program working through the process. Funny I have
a friend who has a Doctorate of Math and I had him proof the mathematics in one
of my books. He said it was way more complicated than he'd thought. Just goes
to show quilting is the highly intelligent, highly developed, art form we've been
saying for years.
I design my quilts using a gray scale. I started out using
colours but my favorites are fuchsia, lime green and purple and I got in a rut
clicking on them all the time. Using a grey scale I can focus on the design itself
and on highlighting particular areas and creating contrast throughout without
worrying about what colour it is. After I'm happy with the design, I reverse the
colours and make an opposite sometimes just to see what happens, other times to
alternate blocks within the design or whatever. It's fun.
After that I'd
make a mock up and hold it in front of a mirror to see how the fabrics blended.
Mock ups are great fun to do but very time consuming. My daughter and I just did
one for her socials studies class to depict a mosaic. It took us about four hours
to cut and fuse but we had so much fun. She says she hates fabric - can you imagine
- so this was one of the few times we've played in it together. She's an incredible
painter though. We're taking up fabric painting to blend our interests. Sorry,
enough Mommy bragging! Anyway, unless you're looking for a new print to frame
or gift to give away, there's an easier way.
Many computer quilt design
packages have actual fabric patterns and colours as fills with regular upgrades
as new lines are released. Textures can also be scanned from Internet sites and
used as the "fabrics" in your computer quilt. Again these are actual
fabrics so when you're done the design, you're as close to seeing what two fabrics
stitched together will look like without actually stitching two fabrics together.
After
that, you can purchase those fabrics and sew your quilt together with confidence.
You already know what it looks like. No worries about finding the right fabric.
Since you scanned it from an Internet quilt store, you know where to buy the fabric.
You're not likely to be disappointed by not being able to find it.
There
are lots of incredible fabric sites on the Internet. Just type quilt + fabric
into the search engine and a list will come up or head to one site and link through
to others from there. To get you started here's a few I've found, each with an
extensive list of fabrics and separate thumbnails for each rather than blended
together - easier to scan.
eQuilter.com - http://www.equilter.com
The Quilting Room - http://www.quiltingroom.com
Vintage Quilting Fabric collection - http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/Calicokopp/paul.html
Salsa Fabrics - http://www.salsafabrics.com
Lunn Fabrics - http://www.lunnfabrics.com
PineTree Quiltworks - http://www.quiltworks.com/store/default.asp
Hickory Hill Quilts - http://www.hickoryhillquilts.com
Design,
colour, create with pleasure and then stitch together the quilt of your dreams.
And, have a wonderful time doing it. Happy Quilting!
Editor's Note: for
additional fabric links, check out Sharla's Best
Fabric Links on the internet included in this issue of Computer Quilting BYTES
Myrna
Giesbrecht is an artist who writes about, teaches, and creates textile art. She
lives in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. Visit her website myrnagiesbrecht.com
or email her at mhg@direct.ca
