How could I resist a challenge with the theme “sunshine and vines”, especially the year that my quilt Flourish on the Vine would be hanging in the National Juried Show?

Mariner’s Compass blocks are elaborate, circular designs with multiple rays or spikes than can be arranged in infinite variations. Drafting them can be a challenge. Here is what I learned while making my very first Mariner’s Compass block.

Designing quilts with circles isn’t as difficult as you might think. Renae Haddadin’s book “Amazing Ways to use Circles and Rays” and EQ7 quilt design software can help!

Stamp carving can be used as inspiration for blocks, quilting or border patterns. I discovered some fascinating designs during a Stamp Carving for Quilters workshop with Maggie Weiss.

We wrap our series on design exercise #1 this week with the last of our five designers, Kathy K. Wylie.

This week, we present the fourth designer in our series: Karen Menzies.

We feature the work of Joyce O’Connell this week, the third of our five designers.

We continue our series this week with the second of our five designers: Marnie Mascioli.

Design exercise 1 has been completed and here are the results from the first of our five designers: Hilary Rice.

Over the next year, a group of fellow quilters will be completing exercises from the book Fearless Design for Every Quilter and I will be sharing our progress here with you. Let me introduce the members of our group.

Fearless Design for Every Quilter, by Lorraine Torrence and Jean B. Mills (C&T Publishing 2009), is like a class in a book.  In fact, the book is based on a design class that Lorraine has taught since 1997.  Meeting for three hours once a month, students in this nine-month-long workshop learn design elements and principles [...]