This one started with me wanting to make a plus quilt and ended up somewhere pretty different.
When I design a quilt, I almost always start with the overall layout and composition. Once I have that figured out I will break the design down into smaller pieces. This way my quilts are rarely made up of repeating blocks. So how this baby quilt came about is pretty untraditional by my standards, but traditional in the common quilting sense.
My starting point was the idea of a yellow plus with a orangey center, almost like an abstract star. These stars were to be set on a dark blue background. I lengthened the plus/star by a square on each end, so it would blend from yellow into a deeper red fabric in the center. When the dark blue hues came out really strong and the contrast felt too stark, I added in a group of mints to blend between the light warm hues and the dark background.
At that stage I began cutting for my blocks. Pinned to the design wall I found the navy fabrics to be too loud still. Put next to each other the corners of 4 meeting blocks formed a really background heavy formation that took the focus away from the light block centers. This wasn’t going to work, the blocks needed to be separated by a white sashing (something I usually try to avoid, as it seems so old-fashioned to me personally).
By breaking up the sashing with one yellow square in the middle of each side of the block I webbed the yellow strings back together, creating the look of a net spanned across the surface. This effect inspired the name of ‘Golden Net’, a little cheesy, but I settled ;-)
I’m almost finished with this baby quilt now and will be back with pictures.
Have a good week everyone!
This post is linked to Modern Patch Monday at Modern Cologne Quilters, Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story, Sew Cute Tuesday at Young Texan Mama, Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts, TGIFF this week at The Quilt Journal, Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts and Fabric Frenzy Friday at Fort Worth Fabric Studio.
veni vidi vicky 
I will be putting this colour scheme and layout in my idea file for 2.5″ squares. This looks amazing!
Yay, Nicole! The colours are what I love most about this quilt. I’d love to see how you use them =)
This is wonderful! I can’t wait to see the finished quilt!
Thank you Deb! Yesterday we had a day without rain, so we went out for a quilt photo session, so expect a blog post soon =)
I love your bright colors and the scrappiness!
This very much looks like your bee block palette! When I get a color scheme it my head, it’s hard to get it out! I understand what you mean about sashing… I’m not the biggest fan either, but sometimes such a strong contrast is what really gives the individual blocks a chance to shine. Looking good so far!
Looks really great! Love the idea of the “golden net” (adding the yellow square in the sashing) but I also think that adding the triangle to the corner of the blocks was a really great idea. Looking forward to seeing it finished.
Thank you Mell! I feel like the clipped corners make the design less choppy, too.
Great use of colour!
Thank you Sarah, the baby quilt has since been finished =)
love the fabric you chose! They will be able to use this quilt forever! great job!
Debbie, thank you so much. I have since finished this quilt and blogged about it, too. Maybe you want to take a look =)
This is an awesome design. Thanks for sharing your design process.
Thank you Lisa. The quilt is finished and you can find a Little blog post about it now =)
Pretty little block! It’ll make a great quilt.
Lovely quilt, and a great insight into your design process!
That’s going to be lovely and colourful!
Thank you Jenny. It’s finished, have a look! =)
[…] So when I think up a baby boy quilt I work around a colour palette instead of a line or a designer. My initial idea for this quilt was a navy night sky lit with bright yellow stars; a plan I didn’t stick to as the design evolved (read more about the process here). […]