My FMQ Practice Binder/Design Library System

I thought I would share how I have my practice binder/design library set up. I made 4 of these..1 each for Mom, my daughter, my grand daughter and of course 1 for myself. I've had a lot of people ask me about it the past couple of years so I took a few pictures this morning. I practice a LOT on paper before I stitch the design out on my warm up sandwich. I have spiral notebooks full of practice doodles.

When I doodle something I'm particularly happy with I will go over it with an ultra fine sharpie..trace it onto printer paper.. then scan it and print it out and put it in a page protector in a binder. Then I can use a dry erase marker to trace over it..I cut up micro fiber kitchen wash cloths to use as erasers.I always have the printed copy on the right side (when binder is open) and a plain piece of printer paper in a protector on the left side. You'll want to erase the dry erase marker after you're done practicing, I have a couple pages that I didn't and it's not just "wiping off" but I'm going to try using a little alcohol to see if it will remove it. Another thing I have in my binder is grids..I have one that is set regularly and one that is on point. I have these in 3 sizes I think.

There are many very generous women like Angela Walters, to name one, that have practice sheets available to download as well. Those would be awesome to print and add to the binder. You could also trace the quilting diagrams from your books and add them to the binder. I also put inspiration pictures in my binder..like in this example it's a page out of one of the adult color books. The adult coloring books are a wealth of inspiration for shapes as well as fillers. Another thing that has been going in the binder is sketches I come up with for the quilting plan for a quilt I'm doing..with the date and who the quilt was for as well.

I practice by tracing the printed one a few times then when I start feeling comfortable I will try doing it free hand on the plain page. With the printed one on the right page and the plain one on the left page you can see the design when you are trying it totally free hand on the plain page. Of course if it's more comfortable to have it the other way around then that's how you should do it. 😉 The main thing is you want to be able to see the printed one and the plain sheet so you can visually refer to the printed one while free handing it on the plain page.

One of the reasons I scan my tracings is so that I can resize them if I want to. Doing this is a great way to build the muscle memory before trying it out on a sandwich..while also creating a library of designs. It's also a LOT cheaper than fabric..batting and thread. 😀

My binder is getting pretty full so I think I'm going to set up 4 binders..1 with all over designs...1 with border and sashing designs...1 with motifs/showboats and finally 1 to save the sketches I came up with for a quilt as well as the picture of the quilt.

Monday I was at the V.A. all day with my Mom and I always take hexies to work on and also a spiral notebook to do practice doodling. I've always loved the feathers with these tips but have never been happy with how mine have turned out. Monday out of the blue it finally just clicked. This will now get traced, scanned and added to my binder 😂

I hope this is helpful to some of you and I would love to see yours if you try out this system ..have a wonderful day! 💖