Finding Quilt Patterns
I started to say, “now the fun part,” but for me, it’s all fun. I will admit, though, that picking the pattern and recreating it in wood is best. But first, I’ve got to find some usable patterns. I started by swiping my wife’s pattern books. She jokingly says that if she can’t find one of her books, all she has to do is look on my desk. But it’s hardly a joke. That will likely be where she will find her book.
Now, if we go to a quilt shop, I will be more likely to buy a pattern book than she will. When we go to shows, I check out the local quilt guild’s table. Someone is always selling a book that might have a pattern I can use. That’s the least expensive source, believe me. I recently bought a book with 500 patterns in it. I paid ONE U.S. dollar for it.
When I get a new book, I go through it and mark patterns I can do. In that book, I found more than twenty patterns I might like to try. That comes to about five cents per. That’s a bargain.

I also take pictures at the shows.  It was at a show in Franklin, IN a couple of years ago that I first saw the “Lucy Boston/Patchwork of the Crosses” pattern. I took a few pictures, and made a few of pieces with it. It has become a real favorite—though it is probably the most difficult one I do. It always gets a lot of comments at the shows.

Lucy Boston Wall Hanging at the show
My Lucy Boston clock
There are some very real limits on what I can do. I can cut only 90 degree and 45 degree angles. I cannot do curved cuts, and many modern patterns—especially the “art quilts”—use a lot of curves. Some patterns are simply too complex, and some are too simple to interest me. Even with all that, I find I have plenty of options.

When I find a pattern I like, I scan it into my computer, resize it to about the size I will do, and print it out as a single sheet. I use that sheet in the shop as a guide, both to build the pattern and to mark as a record of the wood I use. After I complete a wooden quilt pattern, I scan it to prepare the wood identification sheet I give with each piece I sell. I then use those sheets for further reference when I repeat a pattern on future pieces. That way, I have accumulated quite a library of patterns, most of which I use over and over.  But no matter how many times I use a pattern, even with the same wood choices, because wood varies so much, no two pieces are  ever exactly alike.

So, as you start making wooden quilts, find a few simple patterns you like. Don’t pick a pattern with too many pieces, or pieces that are really small. As you go along, you will probably do more and more complex patterns. But start simple. Even the simplest patterns are often beautiful. The first pattern I did—Card Trick—is still one of my favorites, and a favorite of people who see my work. I haven’t tried to count which pattern has sold the most, but my guess is that it’s Card Trick.

This Card Trick trivet contains not only native woods Pecan (the border) and Curly Maple (the white wood), but also imported exotics:  Zebrawood, Wenge. Leopardwood, and Canarywood.