a blooming new Quilt Design

in colorful Mediterranean shades

Scrolling Pinterest for interior design ideas is such a delightful rabbit hole experience. You come across so many lovely things! While I was developing a concept for our attic bedroom, I fell in love with this bed covering.

I am not linking to the source because I think that it is a scam website, but the blanket itself is just lovely. It struck me as something that would fit well with a multicolor Mediterranean theme. The golden orange combined with our blue ceiling and white walls would form a fresh bases for other colorful furnishings.

When I didn’t go through with buying the bed covering because of safety concerns, my wheels started turning. Soon I was sketching ideas for creating a quilt inspired by the blanket design. It should have large-scale circular motifs and lots of negative space, plus delicate details…

Tada! This is what I came up with! I’m calling it Deco Bloom. It’s a fairly complicated quilt design with machine paper piecing, appliqué and traditional piecing. I’ve actually sketched two different circular block designs. Fortunately, the simplified version (bottom right) is my favorite.

Next step - fabrics! I pulled out my solid color swatch cards to look for an orange like the inspiration blanket. The best option seems to be Art Gallery Raw Gold.

Then I used similar orange solids in my stash to imagine potential block combinations. My concept is multicolored and cheerful. The circles at the center of each block would be made up of the same white fabric with blue/coral flowers (Sun Kissed collection) and would be surrounded by petals in alternating solid colors.

This fabric grouping was inspired by the Rifle Paper Co. print, called Petite Garden Party.

This one started with one of my favorite Anna Maria Horner Good Folks fabrics: Buttoned Up.

In each grouping I am planing to use a showy fabric for the largest pieces in the quilt block. The other prints are accents, while the orange background color is a constant presence.

I love this fresh group, which was inspired by the blue tile print, also from the Sun Kissed collection.

This grouping developed with the idea that a darker block could be nice for contrast. Or would it be too dark? Hmm.

Perhaps with another darkish block in the mix, all would balance out.

Soon I had created several little piles of potential blocks for my Deco Bloom quilt. I love, love, love this mix of color and pattern! But then, wouldn’t you know it, we decided against the Mediterranean multi-color theme.

Well, these fabrics are returned to my stash, but my Deco Bloom quilt design lives on. To be continued!