What if you stopped playing it safe with color?
Irish Blossoms by @maureen.garner.quilts is the perfect quilt to find out. Maureen is our October collaborator and the creator of the Color Lab palette: 16 Bella Solids by Moda, bright and dull, warm and cool.
We took her pattern into the lab and asked eleven questions. Take a look at what happened.
Good news if you want to sew it: all of Maureen's patterns are 20% off in her Etsy shop from October 9 to October 19.
#QuiltInkChallengeOct26
Garden. This is Maureen's own version, and the first mock-up in this month's challenge post. A Lapis background, a Chartreuse chain, and a different color pairing for every blossom. All 16 colors of the palette in one quilt.
Bold. Fuchsia is a color most of us save for a small accent. Here it is the whole background, with Baby Yellow and Lapis blossoms and a Cheddar chain. The blossoms still read clearly.
Shuffle. Baby Yellow, Lapis, Fuchsia and Cheddar, four times. Each fabric takes a turn as the background. Same four fabrics, four different quilts.
Mix. In each quilt the chain is the color you would get by mixing the two blossom colors: Citrine + Ocean = Shamrock, Baby Yellow + Geranium = Cheddar, Fuchsia + Lapis = Passion fruit, Bermuda + Citrine = Chartreuse. Where two blossoms meet, the corner looks like both colors overlapping.
Tide. Lapis, Ocean, Bermuda and Composed: four blues and teals, and nothing else. All the contrast comes from light and dark.
Glow. Weathered Teak is one of the dull colors in the palette. Put it in the background and Bermuda, Fuchsia and Citrine look brighter than ever.
Neutral. The quiet colors get the leading role: Linen and Weathered Teak blossoms with a Composed chain, on a bright Cheddar background.
Illusion. Baby Yellow is close to the Linen background, so it fades. The same block now looks like two different flowers: a Passion fruit frame in one, Passion fruit petals in the next. The Ocean chain ties them together.
Loud. Geranium, Fuchsia, Cheddar and Citrine, all warm and all bright. With nothing quiet in between, the blossoms melt into the background.
Solo. Twelve blossoms in Weathered Teak and Baby Yellow on a Linen background, with a Composed chain. Then one blossom in Geranium and Fuchsia, right in the middle. Your eye goes straight to it.
Sunset. Painted blossom by blossom. Each row moves one step along the palette, from Baby Yellow and Citrine at the top to Fuchsia and Passion fruit at the bottom, on Maureen's Lapis and Chartreuse base.
Your turn. Open any pattern on quiltink.com, color it with the Color Lab palette and share your mock-up on the QuiltInk Wall to join the October QuiltInk Challenge.
Share it on Instagram too for 3x more chances: mention @quilt_ink and @maureen.garner.quilts and use #QuiltInkChallengeOct26.