Colour me Blue! (part one)

I love colour, but normally I don’t think of myself as a “blue” person. But I DO seem to be buying/collecting a lot of blue fabrics right now.. so it is time to dip into that growing stash.

My favourite quilts to make are those that use a single simple block. That enables me to concentrate on the colour play at work in the quilt. Here are my inspiration fabrics for this quilt which I have purchased but not used yet:

The blue in all of these fabrics ranges from a deep royal blue to navy to an almost inky blue-black. So I went to my “stash” and started cutting. I never jump right in and start sewing. I am all about “playing” on the design wall, and the final layout comes together: sometimes sooner, sometimes later.

I am using a tumbler template and arranging the blocks in a “Bowtie” layout. After cutting a number of blocks in a mix of blue, yellow and patterned fabrics, I tested two layouts. The one on the left uses a more equal mix of blue with the other colours, while the right has quite a bit more blue, with flashes of contrast yellow/citron. The difference is not striking in these two samples, and I’m not sure which I prefer, so I will make more blocks and test again… stay tuned!