Colour Study in Teal and Gold

Last weekend as I was mulling over what direction to take with the Canvas pattern I had offered to test out for my friend Leanne/she can quilt, I came across this Design Seeds photo, and I knew I'd found the palette for my colour study.

a door hues by Design Seeds

Something about it drew me right in, and within 10 minutes, I had stacks of solids on my cutting board and was making some decisions. I chose a variety of teals and golds, with some Kaufman Essex Linen in natural for the background.

Leanne's pattern has many (13!) size options, and I went with the 24"x24" mini quilt. After a quick and satisfying sew, I had the top done and was ready to baste and quilt! For the backing, 2 pieces of Joel Dewberry's Notting Hill coordinated beautifully, turned at an angle for a bit of fun.

For quilting, I pulled out several Aurifil 50wt spools, and one 28wt. The colors, #2000 (light sand), #2130 (medium butter), #2140 (mustard), #2975 (brass), #4662 (spotted, variegated), and #5006 (light turquoise 28wt), were a colour study in and of themselves. And yeah, I used up that light turquoise before you could get a good look at it!

I quilted good and dense. Sewing with a 3.5 stitch length, I went over 2 stitches at the end of each row before heading back the other way. I randomly changed out threads - whenever it struck my fancy.

For the binding I tried a little something new, and though I love it, my photos of the finished quilt didn't really show it well. So you'll have to trust me on this one, and I'll try it again another time. Basically, I cut a piece of linen about 3"x8" and 'quilted' it cross-wise. After a quick press, I trimmed it to my binding width of 2 1/4". Then I just inserted it into my main binding strip and proceeded as normal.

In the photo below, the little quilted binding section is directly to the left of the darkest teal in the lower left corner.  Unfortunately, you can't really see the colored threads of quilting well in this shot either. This was taken during morning light, so I need to try again to show off the accents better.

Anyway, this was a really fun project, and it was great to try a new palette. Leanne's pattern gives some nice suggestions on choosing fabrics, and is comprehensive in its cutting instructions. Colored diagrams are available for the piecing, which is always a plus as far as I'm concerned. And as a bonus of sorts, Leanne also includes links for finishing techniques, tips if you'd like to make a non-square quilt, and even the actual fabric colors used in her own colour study projects. So yeah, I'm impressed, and highly recommend this pattern! I totally plan on making it again in another size.

***This giveaway is now closed. Thank you for participating!*** Leanne has generously offered to give away one copy of her Canvas pattern, which will be available for purchase very soon. Just leave a comment on this post, and I'll choose a random winner on Sunday night. Meanwhile, watch the #canvasquilt tag on Instagram as other pattern testers show off their projects. Then start thinking what colors you want to try.

Linking up with Finish it up Friday and Fabric Tuesday!