Quilting Designs

So I got my X quilt pinned together but then I got stuck. I had no idea how I wanted to quilt it. So I started thinking about how I could play around with some designs in a drawing but see how they would fit onto my design. So I came up with this.

I took a plastic baggie and cut it apart.
Then I took a few small pieces of tape and attached it to my paper design.

I used a Sharpie to start drawing out ideas for my design. If you had a Vis a Vis pen you could wipe away your design if you weren't satisfied. I won't show you what I finally came up with but I just thought I'd share the idea.
Stay tuned next week for my giveaway!

Making Do With What You've Got...

I really want a quilt design wall. And I will eventually make one. But for the moment, at least, I decided to make do with what I had. I was cleaning up my crafting/sewing area Tuesday and noticed a blank canvas I've had for about 3-4 years. It came in a two pack; the other one was used to create this:

It's just a cute painting that is currently hanging in her room; a combination of big letter fonts on the computer, contact paper, and various acrylic paints.

So I have this second 16x20 canvas I decided to turn into a mini design wall. I was all prepared to show how I did it with a picture tutorial, but none of the pictures showed up in the computer. I took that to mean that I was being told (divinely!) that there are already a ton of quilt design wall tutorials out there so I decided to post them for your information!

1. vinyl tablecloth window hanging from sewmanyways
2. large portable wall from sewmanyways
3. small portable wall from sewmanyways
4. Eleanor Burns has a quilt in a day design wall near the bottom of the page
5. youtube video for how to make one

Anyway, here's how mine turned out:

It's small but I plan on using it as a small idea wall when I finally put up something bigger.
What kind of design wall do you use?

Tinkering and the Design Process

 So I've started work on this quilt for my sister. She will be the big 4-0 this year! We won't discuss that she's my little sister. No, that would mean I'm older than 40 which is not up for discussion. Anyway, I've gotten about 6 blocks done so far so I've got a bit to go but doing well so far. The only problem was that there were only 4 patterns in the jelly roll so there won't be a lot of variation but I think it will be okay with the strip sizes being different.

I've also been playing with this design.

I finished coloring in all the border squares but wasn't completely happy with it being just squares. So I added some triangles which resulted in some pinwheels.

I'm still not totally sure I love it so I'm playing with some erasing which would do this:

Hmmm...