Rather than doing a traditional checker board, we are going to add some extravaganza to it.

The block has two set ups possible, I have chosen to work with 6 colors:

I am going to place these colors on my two blocks set up, I am then going to draw one block set up at the top and the other block set up on the side:

I am now going to match both set up to obtain new color set ups:

If you notice, in the diagonal I have a full blue, then a full purple all the way to the bottom to a full beige.

I will be using those set ups differently and you will see how later on.

So until the third step, have a good week.

Emmanuelle

I have a project for you for the coming few weeks.

I am going to show you how I create from scratch a quilt pattern.

I will call this project : The Checker Board Quilt

Step One: The preparation of the board

A Checker board is the alternation of a black square and a white square, if we add colors to it, it would look like this:

If we divide the checker board into 3 patch blocks, then it would look like this:

If we want to have different background colors, it would look like this:

Two block set ups come out of this, a block with the colored squares in the corners and in the middle, and a block with the colored squares on the edges:

So these are the two block set ups that we are going to work with.

Next step to follow.

Emmanuelle

By looking at this pattern, would you be able to draw it on a piece of paper and prepare all the pieces to make it without having the technical sheet?

If your answer is no, then why not join my membership Conundrum that I am launching January 1st.

Link is here: CONUNDRUM

In no time you will be able to figure out what motifs make up this type of pattern all by yourself!!

But I won't make you wait that long, let me give you the solution here and now.

The motifs that you need to make this pattern is made with the Pyramid shape:

This is the motif that composes the pattern. This is how the motif is set up to make the pattern. First you need to place your pyramid next to each other as above.

Then you will want to turn them as below:

This is the set up that will be repeated all over the pattern.

You will then add some other pieces such as half square triangles and quarter square triangles:

The light blue and dark blue set up is repeated once on the right hand side and once on the...

Keep a journal, whether it is a notebook or a file on a computer. 

Every time you see an image, a texte or an object that seems interesting, you need to register it, either by taking a picture, by saving a screen shot, or by writing a description.

The purpose is not to copy something already existing, but to make a collage (in your mind or on paper) of all this documentation. Some might call it a mood board others an inspirational board, but what ever way you want to make it, you need to start that way.

During my cross stitch designer years, I would spend hours in a store called Maisons du Monde (Homes of the World), it's a store to decorate your home. I would just look at the frames, the boxes, the furniture and imagine what cross stitch I could create on them. I bought a gardening jug and cross stitch a jug design and glued it on the jug. I bought the mechanism to make a clock and made the four seasons around it. I bought some glass soda bottles at the supermarket, loved...

A thread idea is an idea that you start with and that you will develop, my thread idea was using the Marti Michell templates and finding new patterns to use them for that, it was a "THINK OUT OF THE BOX" approach.

As a designer in the quilt world, there are many patterns out there to be inspired from, but I prefer to get inspired by other domains than my own.

The reason I do that is that I don't want to end up "copying" somebody, whether it is consciously or not.

So to avoid that kind of situation, I choose to have a look in domains that are totally different from patchwork and look into architecture, home design, home furnishing...

Lately I was looking into internet designs and came across the Gestalt Theory, did some digging into it to understand what is was about, found it fascinating and decided to adapt it to the quilt world. Finding ways to put into perspective the view of the mind into the collaboration of shapes.

To go from the world of the mind to the world of the real.

...

People are going to remember you more easily if they can identify you in one single glimpse.

That visual touch has to be in your work, in your presentation (flyers, booth, packaging), on your website.

That visual touch can be monochromatic, can be very colorful, can be pastel, in other words, it can be anything you want as long as you stick to one style.

After 13 years of being around with my style in the cross stitch design world, customers would recognize my booth and know my brand "Alice and Co".

I have made a change recently by taking on patchwork as new long term project, and adding to my business name the word "designs", but after all the work put into being known in the cross stitch world, I have now to find my place in the quilt world.

I started out by working for a French quilt magazine called La Pratique du Patchwork, in order to be different from others, I chose to use the Marti Michell templates in a different way, instead of using the templates to make traditional...

WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?

It comes most of all from your imagination,

The way it works for me, is that I see things surrounding me and all the information piles up in my head and all of a sudden the ideas come to me.

You might think "well this doesn't help me much"!!

So let me tell you about my experience: I started my business in 2006 as a cross stitch pattern designer, when I started designing, my main concern was

WILL I HAVE MY OWN STYLE?

When looking around me there were lots of designers that just by looking at a pattern they had made you could immediately relate to them without needing their name on the pattern.

HOW CAN YOU OBTAIN THAT ?

By sticking to an idea.

I am a geometrical person, meaning that I like patterns with symmetry either horizontal or vertical.

To break that symmetry I decided to make the outskirts of my pattern in a heart shape rather than making big squares or rectangles.

My other choice was to only cross stitch in one color which was red.

When I started doing...