Where do you get your ideas?

Midnight Stars

I have been asked that question many times. Sometimes I just shrug because I am not quite sure where the ideas come from.

When I first started quilting I got my ideas from quilt books or magazines. I would see a quilt pattern that I liked and then try to reproduce that quilt. That was back when I used to hand quilt all of my quilts. Can't do that hand quilting anymore!

Over the Sea to Skye

I was happily moving along that path until about 2004 when I started moving into art quilting. That adventure began with a class taken at the former Quilt University with Susan Brittingham. Even after this class I still pretty much relied on getting ideas from books or magazines. I did not jump fully into art quilting. That did not happen until 2014 when I took the year long master class with Elizabeth Barton. I did make some art quilts before then, but they basically were landscape quilts.

Gathering Storm

This class forced me to really begin to make original art quilts. I had joined some online challenge groups to make original 12 in by 12 in or 15 in by 15 in quilts responding to a word cue before taking this class, but the class was a major step forward. It forced me to think in a whole new way.

I have continued to make original art quilts since 2014. So where do I get my ideas now? I pretty much get my ideas from photos. I find a photo I love on a topic I love and create a quilt using that as inspiration.

I have some "themes" that I love....old buildings, industrial things like wind turbines, abstract pixelated images from photos. You can see those quilt series by clicking on the tabs at the top of the blog.

Light in Darkness

This circle quilt actually started as an image of light coming into a dark forest. The grayscale image was pixelated and then played with in an iPad app to get this design. So I guess you could say that I use technology to get some of my designs these days.

So where do the ideas come from? Again I have to shrug. They come from whatever I feel like doing at the time I guess. Seems I have about 100 ideas that I am tossing around in my brain. I will never get to all of them! When I finally want to start a quilt I just have to pick one of the ideas. My brain is always planning ahead. A psychologist would have something to say about that.




My circle quilt is back home again from AQS Michigan and now needs to be shipped to Quilts=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth Art Center. Yes it was accepted there. I am 5 for 5 for entering and getting accepted! I wonder how I will handle a rejection when it eventually comes....

Linking to Nina-Marie.
Thanks for reading.
Chris