Black & White Designing

Recently I got the opportunity to teach a short workshop for the great quilt group I belong to, CQFA. I chose to present a design exercise from Katie Pasquini Masopust's great book "Color and Composition for the Creative Quilter" that I really enjoyed doing myself.


This exercise is all about line and composition and uses pre-fused black fabric and a white fabric base. For this first one, the instructions are to cut up one of the pieces of black fabric into strips of various widths and then to arrange those strips so that all the edges are parallel to the edges of the base fabric. No diagonals allowed.
Before beginning you are to select a composition type from the book's nine designs (diagonal, vertical, horizontal, asymmetrical, symmetrical, circular, radiating, grid, frame) and keep that composition in mind as you make your design. I chose asymmetrical for this one.

The second exercise uses the scraps left over, a different composition type and you are to only place pieces on a diagonal.

I chose to try for a diagonal composition for this one.

The third exercise has you cut up another piece of the black fabric into only curves, trying hard not to make a specific shape (circle, leaf,etc.). I chose a radiating design for this one.

In the final exercise you chose another composition and use the scraps from the previous exercises together. I was going for a grid composition with this one.

Once you are all done designing, you fuse the black fabric down and have a very useful record of your design work. Give it a try, I think you'll find that taking color and texture out of the equation is very useful to make yourself concentrate on making a good solid composition.