I clip and sketch ideas and put them into a binder. Actually, there are several binders floating around. Oh wait. There are also file folders. And, that doesn't include the pile on the cabinet. I loan sketch pads and graph pads to grandkids to draw and they bring me quilt sketches that were stuck in the back. I sometimes take a quilting magazine to the color copy place to save an idea and put that copy in the stack. (I pass on magazines so prefer not to rip out pages.) I even go so far as to buy fabric for an idea and those bundles, with their pages tucked in, are in dresser drawers in the sewing room.

So many quilts, so little time. I think I am a better "idea" person than an execution person.

Graph paper???? (her eyes glaze over)

Binders??? File Folders??? (she shakes her head in amazement)

Let's see..... I have saved an empty tissue box that had a wonderful group of fantasy flowers on it. I have pictures on my work computer saved. There are various clipped pictures, photos, postcards, note cards, etc. hanging from my "inspiration" clothesline strung over my sewing table. Also saved a child's drawing from a past issue of the Subaru newsletter. Then there are 10 million print outs from the internet and Quilterscache, etc. of quilt blocks and ideas to do "someday."

But Linda, at least you are woman enough to admit that you are better at ideas than execution! Although, I know you do beautiful work - so, maybe you have more ideas than time to execute those ideas. Which is something all of us acknowledge.

Inspiration Clothesline? -- now I have a new idea!

Wow. Notebooks and graph-paper and clotheslines??!! - I am so out of touch. I never was a good organizer, though. I look at a quilt magazine or the internet and if I see something close to what I'd like to do I think it out in my head first and then usually I go to EQuilter and work it out completely, of course making changes and editions all the way. I don't always get it exactly how I'd like it but pretty close.

Oh, I LOVE that clothesline idea!!

Now I can put those drawings, postcards, sketches, magazine pages etc.where I can see them. I have a habit of putting my sketches and other pages into boxes or folders and then I just forget about them.
Maybe with the clothesline idea, I will remember to try more of them. I could have at least 20 or more right at my fingertips.
Thanks for the tip.

~Geraldine

I have as much fun with a pencil and graph paper as I have when I'm making the quilt. For me, the design work is a huge part of the process.

I also have quilt sketches in every notebook I've ever owned, in the back pages of books I'm reading, on little scraps of paper in my purse and in the big graph paper pad stuck between my bed and the side table.

Kate

LOL, Teresa - I have a cracked and chipped coffee mug in the back of a cabinet that I am saving to "someday" cross stitch the quote on it! Something about music...Bach & Beethoven...been a while since I've seen it! LOL

I have a lot of free patterns saved on my computer, and some pictures I've found online. I also have binders with patterns I cut out of magazines. Not to mention the shelf full of books and drawer full of patterns...

Donna

I am not very creative but I have a closet loaded with magazines, I have a book case full of books and folders of print outs and freebies. I have the current mags next to my chair. Then there is the computer---------half of the fun of the need for a new quilt is the searching through all of these resources and then go fabric auditioning which can be another place for inspiration.
Oh, I forgot catalogs, they can be the devils advocate as well.
The only time I graph out the plan is when I can't use the size that I like or the colors need changing.

When I see a design I like, I put the picture on the computer; save the pattern if available; try to re-create it in EQ7 or sketch it on graph paper. If it's something I'm really anxious to try, I post a picture over my cutting table so that it's staring me in the face constantly.

I have more than 6,000 quilt pictures on my computer (in categories); more than 500 patterns on my computer; about 15 notebooks of patterns; a shelf full of quilt books; and a drawer full of hand-drawn sketches, designs on graph paper, etc.

And if you ask me how many embroidery designs I have, I will plead the Fifth!

Let's see. I have ideas on graph paper, in magazines, in folders (on line and on a shelf), in binders, ... I really need to organize better.

beverly

Books. I have too many...

Faye

I want to go play at Wanda's house lol!!!
I have pics and patterns saved on the computer, patterns and pics from magazines in binders, many, many notebooks with sketches and notes, patterns in drawers that I have purchased. That's my sewing room - I also have quilt books and magazines in my bedroom closet!!

And I also kept a paper towel for years that I planned to use the pattern in it for FMQ practice, never happened!!

And if all that fails I have EQ7 whuch I have already forgotten how to use. When I bought my new computer I forgot to back up the files I had saved on EQ7 - so I have to start from scratch.
Rosa

Gosh.........I haven't succumbed yet to reams of ideas. I usually start daydreaming about the next quilt about 3/4 of the way through the current one. Yeah, I look a lot, and think about it a lot and late at night, pull up quilt pictures on the inet and drool. But don't make a committment enough to bind it or save it on a file. The next project just bubbles up and surfaces by itself and I kind of like it that way. I will save a few ideas however, like a particular technique I may want to explore down the road, but that doesn't include specifics. I do save the directions to the patterns of most of the quilts or quilt blocks I have finished, and put them in a binder. That way, if I ever want to repeat one it's handy. There is only one quilt on my agenda now and it's a Blue Ridge Beauty, and thanks to the internet, when I decide to start one, alls I have to do is key it in and it'll come up. I get swayed heavily on projects by the Lotto. I worked ahead on the blocks and when I got to Roberta's Jewels............I just couldn't stop and ended up with a queen sized quilt top. LOL. I have a feeling Depression Block is going to do the same thing. I have this thing for scrappy.

I confess to the notebook, binder, magazine thing also, most of which I haven't looked at since 2003. I think I will throw them all out when I move and start over. Sad thing is I won't even miss them.

There are so many ideas already saved on the internet that's where I usually go.

I do have some books, and a binder (not full) of ideas, plus a small stack of patterns/pictures that need to go in that binder. I also have some magazines.

I try to keep just the picture from the magazine, not the whole magazine... This takes less space!

I have some ideas in EQ too. And some pictures saved to my computer.

I can't even come close to competing with Wanda, or even most of yoU!! Yet, I am never short of an idea for the next quilt.