George Lucas once said something along the lines of, “Movies are never finished, they’re just released.”
It’s the same with books. I’ve always said I’d update my books whenever I had some new designs. Last year I created around 200 new designs and I have to put some of them in my books. In theory I could re-write The design master plan using just the new designs, I won’t but I could. I think it’s a good sign when they just flow out of you.
I’ve added in 12 new pages, dozens of new designs and updated some pages so I could fit more illustrations in. It was already jam packed and now there’s even more in it. I’m thinking of updating the cover as well.
I’ve taken From labels to whole-cloths: Volume two offline on Amazon until I finish the new edition and will be taking The design master plan offline soon so I can order a proof book to make sure it’s okay.
In the mean time, here’s a few teaser designs in the new editions and were all inspired by one little flower. There’s 950 designs in this one family of designs…so far.
This design uses many of the 125 concepts detailed in The Design Master Plan. These will also be featured in From labels to whole-cloths: Volume two as patterns.The new pages do a deep dive into mixing and matching designs and the variety of designs I came up with were incredible. All of my designs are warped to fit a circle. I do this in a computer illustration program first and then perfect the pattern manually but don’t think you need a computer program to do it, it’s just easier. All can be drawn by hand. It’s the key to changing any design into dozens of families of designs, all related.What’s the secret to working with multiple borders? It’s on the new page 117.A feature border. I create borders of all shapes and sizes with no quilt in mind. Why would I waste time doing that? It’s not wasted time. I found I’d been limiting my design skills by just creating one square border to fit one quilt. I’d stare at the page until something appeared. If you pop even part of an idea through the design master plan, you can create dozens of designs all related. You’ll have something for any area of the quilt and the designs will evolve far beyond anything you imagine. Can you believe all of these designs are related? How many designs do you think one little flower could produce? If I only wanted one block or border from a design, none of what you see here would exist. I reversed the little heart from the last design to make this little motif. I then wanted to make a block and border out of it so I joined them with a few lines and a circle. This created a whole family of awesome designs including other borders, grids and blocks in different sizes and shapes.
Instead of doing a third book of designs, I’m going to substitute in many of the new designs into From labels to whole-cloths: Volume two. I’m probably going to update Volume one too but I’ll get these two sorted first.
It’s worth the wait for the new editions and I’ll let you know when they’re published.
Fiona Schiffl 
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