Valentine's Day Patterns

I go through long stretches where I just don't feel like sewing - then, I get the bug and can't stop. Since moving to a tiny (I can't emphasize that word enough) apartment in Salem, I haven't really had the wherewithal to work on much, even though fully half of my new living space is set up for quilting. But, as with most things, once I force myself to sit down and work on something, I can't stop until it's finished.

Valentine's Day is coming up and I wanted to get a few new patterns out there and ready to go and since I am the animal applique king (self proclaimed), I went straight for the applique and decided to make these two quilts...

I found the images of the animals and they just screamed out to be immortalized. I was a little hesitant to put a skunk on a quilt until I remembered this picture of me as a 1 year old...

Me @ 1 year old

 And I figured that if my mother could dress me in skunks, it would be fine for a quilt. And, if I do say so myself, they came out very well. I've finished the tops of both (and got rid of some of that "Love" fabric that's been haunting me since a certain post-Valentine's sale at my local fabric store 4 years ago - it seemed like a good idea at the time). Both of them will be completed this (thankfully, long) weekend.

And since my applique patterns don't sell as well as my pieced patterns, I also plan on having a pieced Valentine's pattern up by Tuesday. I'm only going to make the baby quilt as a sample, because that's all the floor space I have and I always bind on the floor - so much easier.

Wishing everyone a happy (and productive if you want it to be) weekend.

Baby Quilt w/ 6" blocks

Twin Quilt w/ 6" blocks

Tangled Up in Blues

I have always feared blues... not blues as in sadness, the actual color. Matching blues is all hard and stuff. There are so many different undertones and shades that finding complimentary blues is a headache. But, I decided to confront my fears and designed a throw that would incorporate five different blues.

I was getting ready to take a hand appliqué class at my local quilt shop, so I came up with this quilt and went in for fabric help. Usually I can stand in the doorway of a fabric shop, scan, and see exactly what I need (and then I buy an extra $100 worth... because obviously I'm going to need it later), but since blues were involved, I asked the nice ladies for help.

I should stop here and say that I've been in quilt shops that have treated me like dirt. Being a guy who quilts has given me a pretty good taste of what women have had to deal with when they take their cars to less than enlightened mechanics. However, the women at Cambridge Quilt Shop have always been wonderful.

I found five great blues and a very black black for the appliqué. Then the appliqué class was canceled because I was the only one who signed up. I could have just learned it from youtube but I was annoyed enough that I just set the project aside for a while (read that as "about a year").

By the time I got back around to it, I had already made a few patterns to sell and realized that the 32 pages it would take to make the appliqué pattern probably wouldn't fly. I also realized that a bed quilt pattern would sell better than a throw, so I ditched part of my original design and increased the size to make it a double quilt.

Since I bought quite a few cones of white thread at my last quilt show, I went ahead and did heavy quilting in all of the white areas. And, apparently my recent aversion to borders also applies to bindings because the only way I could see this was with a white binding. I didn't want the pattern to be blocked in, but to look like it goes on and on.

To Border or Not To Border

Is a border necessary?

Something has come up a few times lately... but before I get into it - there's something that has to be gotten out of the way.

This song has been stuck in my head since I thought of writing this post. Hopefully, by getting it stuck in someone else's head - it will leave me in peace. 

Now that's done...

There have been many debates and controversies that rock the quilting world to varying degrees. They range from the congenial dry -v- steam ironing, through the slightly more contentious seams open -v- seams to the side, all the way through the explosive prewash -v- not prewashing. You really don't want to bring that last one up in polite company.

What I want to talk/ask about today are borders. This may stir a few pots - but I have come to hate borders. Well, that's not totally true - I hate useless borders. If the border I'm thinking of putting on something doesn't add to the design of the quilt and only serves to restrict the main pattern, it doesn't get made. I just run the main pattern all the way out to the edge. Just because something's been done one way for 300+ years doesn't make it right... or even functional in most cases.

Don't get me wrong; I have seen some beautifully crafted borders. Picket fences that work with the flower motif of the middle, beautiful trupunto vines, etc. - but I also see a lot of just necessary and distracting borders that take away from the graphic nature of the quilt pattern. 

Someone posted a picture in one of the quilting facebook groups I'm in of a beautifully striking quilt. It was graphic and strong - one of those that I makes me think, "Damn. I wish I'd made that." Unfortunately, the caption below it said... "I just have to add the border and I'll be through." I wanted to cry.

I can't jump into someone else's design like a cop in an action movie trying to jump in the way of a bullet, screaming, "NOOOOOOOOO!" as I fly through the air. It's their design and their choice.

But, I do want to throw this thought out into the world - Borders are not necessary and sometimes they are even harmful.

Rethinking Pattern Prices

Rethinking Pattern Stuff

When I first decided to sell patterns, it felt like something of a no-brainer. If I'm going to sit down and design a quilt, I thought I might as well write down what I did and make a little residual money off my ideas. I made a quilt for a coworker's baby shower and decided that since I was giving that one away, it would be a good opportunity to make my first pattern and get a little of my cost back.

So, I wrote my first pattern. And with anything new that I try, I was scared witless. What if I'd left something out, what if I'd over explained the simple stuff and made it too convoluted to follow... there were a whole lot of what-ifs. So, instead of charging for it, I released it to the internet for free with a plea for feedback.

Within two weeks, it had been downloaded over 300 times. That was last November and I still haven't gotten a comment from any of that first chunk of people who downloaded it. Instead of throwing up my hands and thinking WTF, I'm taking it as a sign that it's fine and they were able to follow it easily. I'm still learning and may go back and revise my patterns to explain things in simpler ways.

It's hard knowing how to explain something to people of every skill level. A couple of months ago, I got a complaint about my bunnies...

Bunny quilt - CUTENESS!

The lady demanded her money back. I immediately refunded it and went back and looked at the pattern. I had over explained and while everything had made sense when I'd written it, it was convoluted. I'm not even sure I could have followed the pattern and I was the one who'd written it. So I sat down, revised, emailed her a free copy, and she was happy with it. I appreciate her feedback immensely. That interaction has done more for improving my pattern making skills than anything else that's happened.

Now there's been another shift.

I made a quilt for myself, finally. It had been a long time since I'd slept under a new quilt and I'd forgotten the feeling and what made me pick this up in the first place. I ran across Moda's Little Black Dress layer cake at the Worcester Quilting and Sewing Expo last year and it took my breath away. Every square was a work of art and I didn't want to cut any of it, so I sat down and worked out a very simple pattern that would showcase the fabric. Anyone who has made even one quilt could look at this and see the pattern, the parts to strip piece, and take about 10 or 15 minutes to figure out the measurements. Of course, it took me a day to finish the top and a year to get around to quilting it...

Easy Layer Cake Quilt

Because of all this, I just made the quilt, replaced the purple and cream Triple Irish Chain that's been on my bed for eons, and was thrilled the first morning I woke up and was able to wrap myself in my new quilt before starting my day and considered it a done deal. But, when I posted a picture of it on Facebook, a friend of mine wanted to know where she could buy the pattern. I sat down, made a one page PDF of the pattern and emailed it to her. Then I thought that if she wanted it, maybe other people would too. But then I ran into a pricing issue.

I wasn't about to give it away; I'd learned my lesson with the free owl quilt. I had to really think about pattern buying. If I'm making a quilt to keep or give away, I usually won't buy a pattern. If I'm making something to sell and someone wants a design they've seen from someone else, I feel morally obligated to buy the pattern and not just sit down with my graph paper and figure it out. That's what happened when someone told me that they liked this one... I bought the pattern.

Taffy Twists Quilt

Most people aren't selling their quilts, so would feel no real obligation to buy the pattern if they could see a picture and figure it out on their own. The main part of a simple pattern like this is the math and I had to ask myself, how much would I be willing to throw someone to do the math for me. Two bucks seemed about right, so I released the pattern for $2 and it has been selling like gangbusters. It's been up a few weeks and it has not only sold more copies, but even at 1/3 the price, it's brought in more money than any of my other patterns, even the ones that have been up for 6 months, and I haven't seen any signs that it's slowing down. This has made me rethink everything.

$2.00 worth of math leads to a Twin version of the layer cake quilt

When I was first discussing pattern prices with one of my local fabric store ladies, she was appalled that I was going to sell them for just $5. The applique quilt patterns take a lot of work on my part. I pay for the right to use the image, re-size it, break it apart, configure it so it prints out in the easiest-to-reassemble way possible, spend money and time making the example for the illustration, etc. That's a lot of work for slow sales.

For about a second, I was concerned that people were afraid of the applique - but then I remembered the 300+ people who showed no fear of the owl applique when it was free. I've decided that I am going to use the same logic I used on the layer cake quilt and just charge for the time it took me to do the math - for about a month anyway, just to see how it goes.

It's not like digital PDF patterns are something renewable that I have to pay to maintain or ever even think about again, for that matter. I worried that maybe dropping my prices so low would undercut other people's patterns, but most of mine are pretty unique (I think, anyway), so I'm not concerned about that.
Just as an experiment, so that I'll know whether it's my designs or my prices, I'm dropping everything to $2 and see how things go.

I keep reading in all of these business books to not undersell myself and to not under-price myself if I want to be taken seriously... I'm going to ignore them for now. I"m going to keep making cute baby quilts and off-beat throws and if this price cut experiment works, all my patterns might be just $2 forever. I've put off making patterns for these because it has just hasn't seemed worth it... but I'm actually feeling motivated again. I will be the Two Buck Chuck of my tiny corner of the quilting world.

Almost Antique

Manly Quilt of Manfulness

More bunnies

Summer Sailing

If any of you have pattern pricing experience and want to chime in, any comments or ideas would be appreciated.

New Owl Pattern!

I had done this quilt twice, both times in lavenders, so when someone else ordered it, I begged her to choose another color, and I think it came out great. It's a 60" x 80" throw (because oddly enough, I had more requests for this as a throw from adults than I did for a baby quilt). It lists material quantities needed, construction instructions, applique templates, and a link to the applique tutorial on my website... tutorial - because there are as many applique methods in the world as there are quilters, so I thought I'd throw mine out there. The pattern is available in my Craftsy store. (link to pattern) And I will have the pattern up for a 40"x60" baby quilt soon.

My First Quilt Pattern! (updated)

I had over 150 people download this pattern and there were no complaints, so I'm moving ahead with more patterns. If anyone has any questions about anything in one of my patterns, please feel free to email, or even call, me.

Here's the link to the webpage----> codmansquarecreations
The PDF for this adorable 40"X60" crib quilt.