3

fShare

Tweet

While you're diligently working through all of those stacks of magazines and patterns, think about how you can gather images, designs, colors and textures that you find interesting or helpful, to save for later inspiration. What to do with those ideas? Here are several methods that other quilt artists find useful.

1. Take all of those ideas, ads, color inspirations and place them in notebooks for those times when you feel stumped. Jean Wells (Show 1301) keeps creative notebooks that help her with color, composition, and texture ideas.

             
                  (Photos by Gregory Case Photography)

         
                     (Photos by Gregory Case Photography)

2. Jamie Fingal (Show 1702) uses small notebooks and cardstock hang tags for inspiration, which will later often become quilts or fabric lines.

3. Maybe you prefer to see your inspirations in your space. Jacquie Gering (Show 1202) and Jean Wells (Show 1301) use areas in their studio to tack up images that appeal to them.

4. Pam Holland (Show 110) carries around a small sketchbook when she travels. It allows her to draw ideas whenever the mood strikes.  She also enjoys using her Ipad with the app Paper by 53 for sketching.
                                  
 

5. Alex (Shows 809 & 1210) uses her cell phone to capture things that inspire her. From color combinations (above left) to quilting ideas (above right), she finds that the phone is a great tool for collecting ideas.

And...

6. Ricky (Shows 803 & 804) takes the time to sketch and draw when he is inspired, and keeps things tucked away in a folder. Once in a while he is struck by inspiration while out and about. In this example, he walked past the post office, looked up, and realized he was looking at a dragon motif in the ornamental decoration on the gate. This dragon was the inspiration for his Fire Dragon Rhapsody quilt.

Fire Dragon Rhapsody by Ricky Tims