Do you design your own quilts? Have you ever wanted to? I used to draw out my ideas on large sheets of paper. But this involved lots of erasures and re-dos. I went back to school. The local junior college offers classes in Adobe Illustrator. I learned enough in my classes to do all I need to make great patterns. Illustrator makes vector drawings that can be resized easily. I can make endless revisions and save them with different titles. I can color them in, even add texture to imitate fabric. I like to color several final drawings in different colorways to see if my value choices have enough contrast.
The finished drawings may be tiled as they are printed. This means that they can be printed by my inkjet printer on multiple pages. I tape these together to create full-sized patterns.
I am glad that I am not too old to learn new things.
The Winter Amaryllis quilt was a design I took to my quilting group. They all gave me their opinion and the end design was much better.
Thanks, Helen, Nancy, Pat, Wini, Chris, and Mary!