Time For Another Corel Draw Quilt I Designed

I love to use Corel Draw to experiment with possible design ideas.
While this would be something that could actually pieced with fabrics it is not something I would choose to undertake.
Yet taking a section of it could be an interesting design and doable.

This could be a quilt if I took off that triangle section on the right side. I can’t figure out how to do it with Corel Draw but I certainly could create it without that section in fabric.
It would only require 2 templates although you would have to reverse the long triangle when cutting.

Corel Draw and Photo Paint - Experimenting To Learn How To Do Something

For the most part I am self taught using Corel Draw and Corel Photo Paint.
I do NOT usually set out to make something specific happen.

The serendipitous things that happen when I "play" with it are often another kind of "seed" to create something.

Today I was trying to make something specific happen as I wanted to show a group of fabrics in a circular format after I arrange and photograph them.

I played with a photo I had in my files.


I was able to crop a circle from the center of the design with much experimenting.
I am not quite sure how I did this so it will be another experiment next time I want to do it. The advantage is I know I CAN do it!


I used both Draw and Paint to make this happen.

Now I will have to create this effect after photographing the fabrics I want to do this with before I totally forget everything I discovered!

Quilt Designing With Corel Draw

I use Corel Draw to get ideas for quilt designs. This is one of the designs I created with it. I have not made a quilt from it.
Replicating this one in fabric would be a challenge because of the gradation I used as a background.


I played with the design to create this Ginger Jar image. I do not set out to create a design that would necessarily work for a quilt.
Often the designs provide inspiration for a quilt.

I have also actually printed a design on fabric and made a quilt from something I created with Corel Draw. I may have to break the design into several parts and print each part separately to make a quilt the size I desire.

Playing is another way to create art and also learn by trial and error. I am mostly self taught when it comes to using Corel Draw and Corel Photo Paint. There is a learning curve to use this, and what I know is only the tip of the iceberg of this very powerful graphics program.

You can play with fabric but you can also play with a graphics program. These are only two of the ways you can play to come up with a design that may or not become a quilt.

One design - three variations

This piece of art for the wall uses a lot of different techniques. The center panel was designed with Corel Draw and printed onto fabric. Some of the shells you see on that center panel are real and some are printed. The gold seahorse is a charm. I used a lot of shells in the border. I have used several layers of muslin along with two printed fabrics. The muslin has been stitched and clipped to create texture. the binding is a gunmetal color metallic lame. This was a gift for our friend's wedding.
These are all clickable to enlarge to see the details in the pieces.


On this piece the center panel is painted with acrylic artists paints from a tube thinned with water. I used a gold pen to make some marks on the painted panel. This uses a variety of embellishments but the basic design is the same. I also painted some rattail cord and couched that onto the piece. I taught this in my Smorgasew class. Each student painted a panel in class, coordinated prints and embellishments to use with the panel and then went home with directions and completed the project.



This is the same design again but this one is a heart theme. It is in a private collection. These were so much fun to create.

The puzzle is a star cut for the Starfish art.

Compass Rose

Compass Rose is another quilt I mounted on a custom made stretcher frame. There was a misunderstanding about the size so I also have another octagon frame that I will make a quilt to fit.
This was one of Jinny Beyer's seminar block designs at one of her very first Hilton Head Seminars. Of course her block was a square. I drafted the pattern in the size I wanted it to be.
Although I used some traditional calicos in this piece I also used some batiks and other fabrics that were unusual over 25 years ago.
This is hand quilted.


This SEVEN pointed star is a quilt I designed with Corel Draw but never made in fabric. It would be next to impossible to create this one as you see it here in fabric. I did this about 14 years ago when I was having so much fun with Corel Draw I wondered if I would ever make another quilt.
I could not begin to tell you how I did this.
About the only 7 point star quilts I have seen are those where someone started out to make an 8 point star and found the pieces didn't fit so they left one out!

One thing I have noticed about the quilts I have made is many of my best pieces radiated out from the center in a mandala format. I am not currently working in this way.

I am giving us 2 different options for the Compass Rose puzzle tonight - easy and more challenging.

If Vasarely did The Colors Of My Life 8 & 9

I was looking at some Vasarely images and I thought "I can do that with some of my quilt images." So here you have a combination of The Colors Of My Life 8 and 9 together each with a oval sphere in the center.
I love the challenge of figuring out how to do these manipulations of my quilts with Corel Draw.

If I wanted to I could actually print this in the size I wanted to make it, cut out templates and make this from fabric. I have no intention of doing that. I know what it would look like and there is no reason for me to make an actual quilt from this design.

This was the Vasarely inspiration image. I was not trying to do the exact same type of image - just something with the double sphere.

Vasarely is one of my two favorite artists. The other is Agam. Many people are not familiar with either of these artists.

Tonight's puzzle is the Vasarely inspired adaptation of The Colors Of My Life 8.

More Quilt Designs

This is another quilt I designed on the computer but never made in fabric.
At the time I designed it there probably wasn't even fabric available that I could make it with. Today there are shaded fabrics that could make this work.


This design could be a quilt block or an entire quilt.
I teach a class called Honey I Blew Up The Block and this design was an example for that class. By choosing appropriate fabrics you can piece a simple quilt and let the fabrics do the work.


This is yet another quilt I designed and never made. This one would be a challenge to piece and would be just as big or a bigger challenge to fuse.
When I did these design experiments I had no end result in mind. I just tried different things until I came up with something I liked. I also didn't consider whether they would be practical to construct. I was more interested in learning to use the program so that eventually I could use it to design quilts.

Here's a puzzle that will show you a small section of June Series 19, the quilt I finished yesterday.

Quilt 322 or June Series Quilt 19

I just finished the 19th and last quilt in my June Series.
This is one of the two series that will be part of my Solo Show opening in January.
What a wonderful freeing feeling to have all 19 finished.
Sorry - I can't show it!
It's also the 322nd quilt I've finished in the last 30 plus years since I started quilting.
I also keep a record of my works in progress. That list just shrunk to 79!
When the WIP list threatens to go over 100 I review it and move some of them to the rework or abandon list. Then I no longer count those. I also started a new list to move things to "Questionable to Finish".
But I can show you some quilts I designed on the computer now than I know how to share Corel files.

I designed this log cabin quilt using patterns that resembled fabrics we were given for a quilt guild challenge years ago. I printed this out on several pieces of fabric to make it large enough.Then I added the actual fabrics to the 4 corner squares. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the finished quilt before I sold it.

Does this image look familiar? This is an intersecting fields of color quilt. This is the quilt on my logo before I distorted it.

Today's jig saw puzzle is also something I designed on the computer. My students were designing their quilts for my Graduate School - Shapes class following the guidelines I gave them. At the same time I was learning to use the computer to manipulate designs and used the class exercises as a challenge to myself.

Using the Computer in Quilt Design

This is a quilt I designed on Corel Draw to use the special fabric I dyed that gradates from dark to light and back to dark.
What you are seeing is the computer image.
After I designed it with the computer I had no desire to create it in fabric. The satisfaction I get designing was fulfilled.
Corel Draw and Corel Photo Paint are my graphics programs of choice.

Generally I just play with them and sometimes I come up with something that gives me the spark I need to create a quilt.

I have found if I design a quilt with Draw once I try to translate it into fabric it just doesn't work the same way. Unfortunately most of the things I have done with Draw can't be saved in a format that will allow me to post them here for you to see.
If anyone knows a way around this I'd really appreciate knowing about it.

I like to work directly in fabric. Sometimes I have a general idea what I am trying to achieve and sometimes the fabric just leads me.


I tried to design this quilt with Corel Draw and had what looked good on the computer. I chose fills for each section that resembled the fabrics I was working with. I started by making the Tulip units. When I put them on the design wall in the original configuration it just didn't work at all.
Fortunately I was able to rearrange the units I had already made and add other units to make the quilt work.
It was definitely another good lesson for me.
Another way I use Corel Draw is to create black and wite designs that I then have made into thermofax screens.
The other graphics program I find I enjoy using is Electric Quilt. Again, I use it more for ideas. Once I've seen a diagram of a completed quilt I have no interest in making it.

Since so many of you are enjoying the puzzles I have a version of the first quilt for you to solve as a puzzle.

I consider this a relatively easy puzzle.