In my pre quilting days I never thought much about colour. Blending the colours above in the latest Bee quilt for Siblings Together would never, ever have occurred to me. In fact colour is something I’m quite ambivalent about. My wardrobe is full of a fairly standard range of safe colours such as blues, greens, russets. They are usually toned down and designed for practical living n fact if they made wearing denim illegal I would be in serious trouble! The colours in the house are equally  muted with an emphasis on warm tones which works for me.

My 15 yr old daughter tells me it is the typical decor of an older woman! Now to be fair I’m an older mother having had my children in my forties. Mind you I was horrified to overhear a young women doctor in a hospital waiting room describe those over 65 years as elderly! I think I will be avoiding that hospital.

Anyway we have plans, or rather my daughter has, for refurbing her room, in tones of white to mid grey so in fact even less colour! After a bit of encouragement she has agreed to introduce a grey pink colour as an accent picked out from some room sets on Pinterest.

 

As an aside her choice of a greyish pink made me inwardly smile as pink was banned from her wardrobe after I had dressed her exclusively in that colour as a baby/toddler.  I persuaded myself this was to differentiate her from her boy twin but of course dressing them in pink and blue was very cheesy and predictable but I loved it! Of course by the time she chose her own clothes pink was off the agenda! But things go full circle.

I am trying not to feel too sad  that her current quilt

will be  the wrong colours – perhaps I should encourage her to go for turquoise as her accent colour.

Anyway looking at this new quilt this range of yellows, oranges, corals and pinks blend in so beautifully. Seeing so much inspiration out there as I look at other quilts has definitely made me more aware of colour even if it hasn’t quite got as far as my home and wardrobe.

This has got to be one of the most perfect Bee quilts out there. It’s a free pattern called Field Crossing by Elizabeth Olsen for Cloud 9 fabrics. In fact I’ve done this quilt design before with another Bee

but with blues and greens.

The actual block is an easy and quick make with virtually no waste. Perfect for scraps. In fact it doesn’t take many to make a quilt because of the amount of negative space. So the Bee doesn’t have to be that big to pull off a quilt. And personally I think this design works particularly well with a variety of fabrics.

Its the first quilt of the The Threadhouse Retreat Bee for the charity Siblings Together (for more info on this charity see the tab above). The Bee arose from a show and tell of Bee quilts that Nicky Eglington and I did during the recent retreat and admittedly a fairly heavy sell. I think it was my gimlet eye that made so many sign up as it is in fact quite a big Bee now and I have so many of those blocks there will be another quilt in due course.

For this one I pulled out the blocks that were in the colour range mustard yellow through to plum. Other blocks had ventured into a slightly wider range including cooler colours like purple and bluey green and will eventually make for a very zingy quilt.

With that much negative space I thought the quilt called for an overal design and so swirls it got. I must be getting better as a quilter as the swirls are more consistent, although far from perfect, than the earlier green and blue Field Crossing quilt which was my first attempt at free motion quilting and quite frankly it shows.

I hadn’t quite meant for the quilting to be as dense as it is.  It took forever….however the texture is lovely and it’s a very tactile quilt.

As to the binding I have totally stolen an idea from the very creative and talented Jayne of Twiggy and Opal  who put a strip of colour down just one side of a recent quilt she made which is perfect for this one  as well.

Even the back is pretty!

I have to say it was fun to do a gloriously feminine quilt. I normally go for gender neutral or decidedly masculine colours for Siblings Together  as most gifted quilts are suitable for girls but not all are suitable for boys. But just for once I’ve indulged myself…. although with sewing matters I’m afraid I usually do! It’s just real life where I have to do lots of things I’d rather not……

Linking up with Kelly, My Quilt Infatuation and Amanda Jean, Friday Finish