Colour Inspiration Tuesday: delicious colour combinations to try on your quilts.

Hello! Happy Colour Inspiration Tuesday! Did you have a chance to try out the Strawberry Vines quilting motifs inspired by last week’s colour board? I haven’t found anymore time to play further with Strawberry Vines as yet. But do you know what goes well with strawberries? Chocolate. Hot Chocolate to be precise. Mmmmm.

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Hot Chocolate

The “Hot Chocolate” colour palette is dark red, red-orange, greyed-teal, off white, and warm shades of grey through to almost black. These colours are a really close match for the Jaffas and Cream charity quilt I blogged recently. You can find out a lot more about that quilt here.

What will I do with this colour scheme? You know there is likely something, right? Well, to tell you that story, first I need to tell you this story …..

The colour scheme that nearly never was

I started the Hot Chocolate colour scheme for last week’s colour inspiration slot. But then I realised that it wasn’t very different from the  Frosty Berries colour scheme we had two months ago. And that it also bore a fair resemblance to the warmer colour scheme Red-Eye Flight that we explored three months ago.

So, I set Hot Chocolate aside and started over with the Strawberries Vines post instead. I had no intention of resurrecting Hot Chocolate this week either, but then something happened. A good something.

I was drifting around the quilting part of the internet, as I do (a lot). And I discovered that Myra at Busy Hands Quilting is starting a fresh quilt along called Splash of Color. And I have taken the bait. Possibly the line and sinker too. The aim of the quilt along in question is to produce a black and white quilt with colour highlights.

Splash of Color Quilt Along

Now, I have to confess, I don’t do quilt alongs. I don’t do crowds. I don’t do other people’s patterns without a really, really good reason. Let’s be real here – I don’t even do my Handi Quilter homework til the due date! I get distracted. I end up with UFOs and inferiority complexes and all the other baggage that social media can trap you with. But I think this quilt along will suit me, and I’m actually pretty excited. 

Why? Because:
– it covers a quilt theme that I have wanted to try ever since I borrowed a certain book several years ago from my local library. That book was “Quilting in Black and White” by House of White Birches. (I have actually borrowed it several times). Many of the quilts in this book are black and white with colour highlights, and the effect continues to appeal to me.
– I have a Pinterest board dedicated to black and white quilts (with or without colour highlights) because I have always believed that some day I will get around to making such a quilt. It has over 300 pins on it. That is not a casual relationship!
– I have two black and white fabrics I specifically want to use. My husband bought them for me as a gift from one of his work trips. They are probably not what I would have chosen. But one should never discourage gifts of fabric! 🙂 And now they are exactly what I need. Yeah!

– And, probably the clincher…. there is no pattern for this quilt along, the only boundaries are the colours and the timing. So I can create, and emotionally invest, and wander around this quilt theme all I like. Awesome!

So, back to my Colour Inspiration Tuesday/quilt along idea….. 

I always thought my future one-day black and white with a splash of colour quilt would be black, white and brilliant blue. Or black, white and rainbow. But it is going to be black, white and red.

Because I realise that I must really like this combo. “Hot Chocolate” is the third colour scheme in this general genera, out of less than 30 colour palettes. And I had another photo lined up in my ideas folder that would have resulted in a fourth (don’t worry, I am NOT doing a fourth). So clearly I am attracted to this graphic colour combination. 

There is also a measure of expediency in my choice. I have a great big piece of red fabric, also purchased by my husband, that is the same print as one of the aforementioned black fabrics. It will be perfect for the backing. Easy.

Here are my fabrics. I will probably have to add to them. (Oh, that’s so unfortunate…. hahahaha). My rainbow batik stash is sooooo wrong for this.

I am hoping I will be able to find some other fabrics to match when we go to Vanuatu soon, which is where these first three came from. I also am hoping that the finished product will be a lovely souvenir of our family trip. And an encouragement to hubby to keep bringing that fabric home. (Hello dearest – just checking whether you actually read this.) And a couch protector… my black and white quilting friend with a red collar is playing havoc with the furniture :(.

I am going to do a black and white background, and for my splash of colour, I am going to appliqué a red turtle on top. There might also be a hint of teal. The turtle will be inspired by the turtles on the fabric. I hope it will be eye-catching, just like the photos for my mood boards.