Finding quilt inspiration

Almost every day, we have someone come into the store who wants to make a quilt but they don't quite know where to start. They're often buzzing at our wall of fabrics - easy to do when there's more than 3000 dazzling designs to choose from.

My advice is: take a breath, and work out a plan before you commit to dozens of fabrics.

My professional background is in strategic project delivery, and I adopt the same skills when starting a new quilt. I take an idea and map out what needs to be done to make sure everything I do is orientated to achieving the project goal so that I create something that's the best it can be.

Along with being visually exciting, I want my quilts to be useful and relevant to the spaces that they'll be in. Fulfilling these goals means my quilt is going to be used and loved. My plan is going to help me make decisions and stay on track.

I'll step you through how to frame up your plan, using a case study that I'm working on

Your starting point for inspiration can be almost anything - a colour, a character or person, a flower, place, activity, style - whatever lights you up. Decorative floor tiles and artworks hanging on patterned wallpaper are enduring inspirations for me, so many of my quilts have a nostalgic style and incorporate clashing patterns in complex, unusual colours.

For this quilt, I want it to be mostly used in the fourth bedroom of this house - a 150-year-old kauri villa in Central Otago. I want it to look like it could have been made by one of its early occupants and is still there, just as they left it.

The room has tongue and groove walls, a timber floor and a Victorian fireplace laid with rocks in dark grey, dusty green and a reddish brown.

With this specific room in mind, I write this brief list of inspiration sources that will help this quilt achieve my vision and appear that it's been in this room for more than a century.

   

• The colours in the fireplace and hearth - black, grey, green, brown.
• The colonial mood of the glorious Jane Campion film, The Piano.
• The subtle texture and simple shapes of old hardback books stacked on a bookshelf.
• The botanical patterns of Victorian designers, such as William Morris.

These four simple ideas are going to be the cornerstone characteristics for the quilt from here on. The design, fabrics, sewing techniques and mood of the quilt must all reference my inspiration list.

I like to save screenshots of my inspiration on my phone so I can refer to them when out fossicking for fabrics, but you could pin pictures to a notice board, gather together a tray of physical objects, or write a list in a notebook or journal.