A New Quilt From Start to Finish - Chapter 2 Color

Now that I have the different sections of this
quilt chosen (check out this previous post about designing this quilt), I get to color it. Quiltster is a great tool for auditioning fabric. There is an option to choose fabric collections - Judy's fabrics, Kaffe, Bali Watercolor Batiks, and more. Excitement building, big time!



To give myself some limits, I only designed with the 1895 Bali Watercolors. Even then, there were so many to choose from. I would suggest identifying a color scheme and sticking with 4-6 hues and their cooresponding tones. I have a board on Pinterest reserved for color schemes. I saw these leaves and it immediately spoke to me. This would be my palette. 


Just for fun, I tried a few other ones. In this one I used peacock-inspired colors. I get a big kick out of coloring quilts that I may never make. It helps get me out of my color box.

So here is what I finally decided on. Not quite as much purple as in the leaf picture, but I like how it turned out. At this point, I still haven't seen the fabrics next to each other, so I'm taking it on faith.





Another cool feature of Quiltster is that it gives you a yardage chart - either total or by block. At Quiltworx University, we were the guinea pigs for the newest feature of the system - the fabric requirements were sent straight to the quilt shop that was hosting our event, Thimble Towne. So my fabric was cut into strips and was waiting for me when I got there. Although I do enjoy the fabric shopping aspect of quilt making, this feature would save lots of time. I'm not sure how many or which stores will be connected to Quiltster, but I'm excited to find out.

Check out Quiltster - even when you are not designing a quilt, it's a great creative on-line activity.