Every once in a while I make a quilt with a specific recipient in mind, but most often, I just make something that appeals to me. Then, somehow, the perfect recipient appears. A new baby is born or someone just "needs" a quilt. I have made several quilts for myself, only to discover that they really "belonged" to someone else.

I find most of my inspirations on line or in quilting books. The bonanza of fabric fat quarters that my neighbor gave me a couple of years ago has really inspired me to be more creative and has introduced me to the world of "scrappy."

I find my inspiration from pictures on line particularly from some of my favorite blogs. I find it turns me into a "fret" when soemone asked me to make a quilt. While I love to do it, I seem to stress over the design. For me I usually just get a design stuck in my head and /or I have a fabric I love that speaks to me.

i've given away several quilts, and only a few were specifically designated for someone. It's the process of creating a quilt that gets me going...as evidence by the number of tops I need to finish!

V.

So glad to see a QOTD post, it's been so slow lately! I'm the same, I rarely say to myself, "I need to pick out a quilt to make for so-and-so". I'll see something on a TV show, a video, or in a book or magazine that really gets my juices flowing. Then I'll usually mentally make changes - either in color waves, size, or adding or deleting something. And of course I have to go shopping from my closet fabric stash. Many times I'll work it out on my EQ program to make sure it will work. Then usually while I'm making it or right after I'll decide if it's going to anyone or not. I've actually run out of people who would make my quilt-worthy list so when they make the second quilt-worthy list they are really something special - LOL! But I've got so many now I guess I'm going to have to lower the requirements on who is worthy since I'm running out of space for them. I have 3 quilt ladders full of them now, not counting the ones on the beds, couch, etc.

Me too. I will see a pattern somewhere and say "I'd like to make that", like Jackie's turkey tracks red and white. Usually it has no home or recipent in mind and usually they end up as a top only because I like the creative process. I am stirring around starting an applique project right now but also have a mound of greens and a mound of tans just yearning to be turned into something. On vacation I often look at a design in a carpet or on a wall and say "that would make a nice quilt". My "ideas" pile is beyond reach already. I have a daughter practicing FMQ with a new machine and I think she may get a box one of these days full of quilt tops. That will give me more space to fill up.

My return to quilting was to make comfort quilts for co-workers who were experiencing difficult times in their lives. Most of them were made with regard to the recipient and his/her condition in mind. There were exceptions (one friend's daughter was killed in a car accident) that required a really quick finish, thus a simple pattern. Lately I have been making a lot of tee shirt quilts for friends, so those are pretty well dependent on what I receive. But for most of my quilts I have seen something I want to try and do it. Sometimes I start out to make a queen quilt, hate the pattern (or fabric I chose) and it becomes a lap quilt just to get it finished. Sometimes I like a pattern so well I make several of them.

I usually make a pattern that I like then they find themselves going to someone. Sometimes I will pick out a specific pattern as a gift, like the Turkey Tracks to a friend getting married whose fiance loves red. Sometimes I will make a quilt because I know it just fits someone. But most times I make what I like and then it magically goes to someone. I am waiting until the 25th to find out what kind of grandchild I am going to have, and that quilt will be chosen specifically for the child. I also need a new applique project for when I travel, so it will depend upon whether my grandchild will be a boy or a girl. For the past several years, I have been making scrap quilts...and I still have scraps multiplying in the bins. I see several string quilts in my future.

For me, it's a little bit of all those things. I'm just picking up my second quilt from the long armer tomorrow, so I
don't have a lot of experience. I have four or five quilts in the
queue, though.

For me, it's usually a fabric that I see. I see some great fabric and think
it would make a great quilt. So far, I'm kind of stuck on baby/children's quilts, so I find ABC fabric I like and start figuring on how to make that a quilt.

Once, I saw this great fabric at walmart of all places. I bought 1/2 yard of it just because I loved the colors. I saw Jennie Doan's tute on quartered stripes and went back for more fabric. I still love the colors, but the quilt is getting iffy. As someone said, it might be a lap quilt. It's just too much of the same thing. I've already cut out the whole thing for a large full size quilt, so if I bail, I'll have to make at least two lap quilts.

There was a great quilt in F&P quilt magazine last fall made with flannel. Since I have a bunch of flannel fat quarters that I bought at an estate sale last year, it would make a nice quilt - and it's easy. (important for a newbie)

Yesterday, someone mentioned an "around the world" quilt. I looked it up and now I want to make one.

Inspiration is everywhere!

bkay

I seem to wait until the last minute to decide to make a quilt for someone, so I am always in a hurry and don't have a lot of time to think about it. That's kind of a good thing because I don't over think it. So I've only made easier pattern quilts. Even the kimono quilt I made for my daughter wasn't really hard and came from various Asian prints I had picked up over a year's time just because I couldn't help myself.

I think I've only bought all the fabric for a particular quilt once, and that was for a class. I signed up not realizing you bought the fabric ahead of time. I arrived at the class and had to hurry to pick out the fabrics for the wall hanging. Do we see a pattern of hurrying?