The Way to Build a Business As a Child : Guest Post: Designing a New Baby Quilt Pattern

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Guest Post: Designing a New Baby Quilt Pattern

Ready, set, go... It is not a race when I set out to design a new baby quilt.

Before I decide how I want my next baby quilt patterns to look, I pull out the quilt books on my shelves, the magazines that I have sitting just waiting for me to leaf through their pages, and check out some of my patterns that I have saved either in boxes or on the computer files.

Through the years, I have learned to carry my camera or a sketch pad to quilt shows, or even in a quilt shop if I see a design that intrigues me. Filing that information away and waiting for a time when I just may use pieces or bits of those designs to get an inspiration for a quilt of my own.

Here are some of the starting points that I deem necessary to consider when designing a new quilt:

Decide on the style of baby quilt you would like to make. Is the baby quilt patterns going to be a traditional patchwork, or more contemporary? Do you want to piece the quilt top or appliqué? Maybe a combination of the two?

Ask yourself what is going be the purpose of the new baby quilt pattern. How much wear and tear will it receive and will the quilt be subject to repeated laundering? A baby's quilt more often soiled, dragged on the floor may need to have a quick and easy design, as compared to a wall hanging or a bed quilt, that is well cared for.

Decide how much time you have available to denote to the baby quilt project. If you need to complete the quilt in a short period of time, select a pattern or design for your quilt that requires limited hours of your time to quilt. Yet, if you have the time to put into hand sewing or appliquéing a special baby quilt pattern, choose an intricate design and put more effort into the quilting.

Fabric is always an important decision. If you choose a busy print this will hide the quilting design, use a cross-hatch grid or quilt in the ditch method. Place intricate and detailed quilting motifs on solid-color fabrics or tone-on-tone prints.

Remember that you also need to consider you own level of expertise. If you are just a beginning quilter, choose patterns and designs that are simple and require straight lines or grids. If you have the expertise to handle more advanced techniques, challenge yourself with the more intricate patterns, such as feather designs or if you machine quilt, meander or stipple quilting.

Once you are ready to bind your baby quilt, consider again your skill level, time constraints, how much use the baby quilt pattern will receive, or whether the baby quilt has edges that are straight, irregular or curved.

I have one more important and vital part to the process that many quilters tend to skip. Photograph your quilt both from far away and close up shots. Keep these either in an album of all your treasured works of art that your print out at your local photo shop or store digitally, both on your computer and also on a back-up copy (CD or jump drive), just in case the technology fails.

A baby quilt is an heirloom and records should be kept.

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5-step Process for Business Transformation and Organizational Stability

Step 1: Mobilize Executive Leadership – Develop the KISS StrategyOrganizational change begins with executive leadership, and the first step is to redefine the organization’s strategy in light of current conditions. Often, strategy begins with an overall financial objective, such as return on investment or capital. These days, a financial goal may not be enough; executives must also devise a strategy that enables the business to adapt quickly to new and often unfamiliar terrain. This means understanding, improving and simplifying processes and infrastructure to make the business more agile. It also means enlisting everyone’s help and challenging them to think differently and creatively about the business.
Step 2: Translate Strategy into Tangible Terms – Create a Balanced Scorecard -The second step is to translate the resulting strategy into tangible terms, and communicate it down the chain of command to the tactical level. One way to do this is to develop a corporate balanced scorecard that defines the strategy from four inter-related perspectives:Financial Perspective,Customer Perspective,Internal Process Perspective,Infrastructure Perspective.
Step 3:Align Business and Support Units – Cascade Priorities After you identify the systems and processes that are critical to the success of your business, the third step is to assign metrics, or Performance Indicators (PIs), to the outputs of each core process. For example, if you manufacture products, your core processes are likely marketing and sales, research and development, manufacturing, and purchasing. Each of these processes has certain outputs that should be measured by relevant PIs (e.g., an output of the manufacturing process is the number of units produced, which can be measured for a particular time period to establish a baseline metric).
Motivate Teams for Effective Implementation: Link and Reward Performance -We can’t forget the people component of all this, which is the fourth step. From the CEO to the executive team, mid-managers to project owners, leaders must be able to convey the overall strategy and supporting objectives in a manner that empowers the rest of the organization. This calls for more than simply managing the performance of others. It means guiding direct reports through activities and projects that will enable the organization to meet specific goals, while still maintaining daily operations. This requires an array of leadership skills, such as the ability to take action, provide direction, identify and eliminate distractions, motivate others and facilitate team success.
Step 5: Strive for Perfection – Repeat the 5-step Strategic Process -Finally, this cycle of transformation must be integrated into the organization and embodied at every level. Go beyond these steps as a one-time checklist, and make the continual pursuit of perfection your goal. The hardest part is getting started. Once employees see how their contribution can make a difference, and management begins to see the positive effect on the company’s bottom line, a powerful momentum will motivate change. With each cycle of this five-step process, your organization will become healthier and more stable.