The Man (and Women) Behind Visual Quilting

Though Peyton Richmond is not a quilter himself, this chemical engineer has made a significant contribution to the quilting world -- particularly for quilters with computers. Drawn to the artwork of his mother's quilts and inspired by discussions with her about textile design, Richmond set out to create Visual Quilting, a shareware quilt design tool for Windows. Richmond recently answered some questions from Planet Patchwork about the program and the quilters in his life. (Richmond is pictured at right with his daughter Carley, and a quilt made by Carley's older sister.)

There are already a couple of quilt design products out there for Windows - what prompted you to write your own?

I started looking for quilt design programs after some discussions with my Mother about color and fabric choices for quilts.  However, after searching the web, I determined that there were not any shareware programs that would allow me to see those choices.  I decided to develop the Visual Quilting software as a hobby to enhance those discussions.

Why does the market need a shareware quilting program?

A shareware program allows people who typically do not quilt enough to justify purchasing a program to design a quilt and share it with someone who can help them make it a reality.  Obviously my target audience was my children.  They used the program to create designs this summer that their "Granny Ruth" helped them make into quilts.  My kids enjoyed the experience and my Mother is becoming a Visual Quilting power user.

What features did you feel were most important to incorporate into Visual Quilting?

I feel that true color and fabric visualization is the most important feature of Visual Quilting. Scanned fabrics designs are scaled to their appropriate size whether viewed for a quilt block or for the entire quilt.  A full range of color palettes is included for the novice while the capability to scan fabrics and create new color palettes is provided for expert users.  I also wanted to export and import blocks between quilt projects and resize block designs to fit into different settings.

I am planning to put my children's quilting experience on my web site(www.visualquilting.com) but dealing with Hurricane Rita's aftermath changed my priorities this year.

How were you affected by Rita?