I used to feel it was pure sloth to start a piece without a pattern. I'd seen books on making landscape quilts, and those artist made fairly elaborate patterns, so I felt I should too. My problem is, after investing lots of time in making the patterns, like this one for my sea gulls,
I get sort of lost in the lines, and wonder, what the hell was I thinking? Also, LINES are not SHAPES, which caused more head scratching. So even though I had this giant drawing on taped-together-pieces of butcher paper, it proved pretty useless. What's light? What's dark? Arg.
Sketches like the one below, while not a pattern, were more useful to me when I was making the little quilt on the left. The sketches weren't life size, and they weren't even the final shape of the quilt, but they were a pretty good map for where I wanted things to go, and where my lights and darks would end up. Ultimately, everybody has to find what works for them, and for me, that's an ever evolving process.
