Colour Inspiration Tuesday(ish): It’s all about colouring our quilts, our way!

Welcome back to Colour Inspiration Tuesday! I know…. it’s Wednesday…. but this week we are having a Colour Inspiration “Tuesday” blitz. Because I have had too much fun designing colour schemes and matching them to fabrics, thanks to Stitched in Color and Quilt Sandwich Fabrics.

And besides, it’s still winter here, so a healthy dose of summer colours all week will not be a bad thing. So buckle up and enjoy the colour ride. Next week we will be back to normal. Maybe.

Today I have chosen a picture of a pineapple on the beach from Unsplash.com. Why are there so many pictures of pineapples on beaches? I don’t know. It’s quite incongruous if you stop to think about it, yet we still think summer/tropical holidays when we see them. I have a reason for choosing this photo though. I’ll tell you in a moment.

Today’s colour palette is called “Digging for Pineapples”.

Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Digging for Pineapples

The “Digging for Pineapples” colour scheme is yellow, orange, blue, green, aqua, teal and tan. These are fresh tropical summery colours, with a lighter feel than yesterday’s calorie laden colour palette, Ice-cream Tones. You can use lots of white with these colours to preserve the summer freshness. But they work equally well as a solid block of saturated colour for feasting your eyes on.

For example, here is the back of a quilt I made for my nephew a while back. I made it from a layer cake of 10″ squares of batik fabrics from Timeless Treasures Tonga Treats. The colours are just wonderful.

One of the prints in this series even looks a bit like pieces of pineapple!

But I digress a little. This week we are looking at fabrics that are available now from Quilt Sandwich Fabrics’ Etsy store. 

I made several mosaics from fabrics that I think capture the mood and colours of Digging for Pineapples. I won’t be adding any to the mosaic contest because there are already several mosaics that are similar to these up there and I have more ideas to try out yet…… but these combinations are lovely, and there is nothing stopping you popping over to Quilt Sandwich Fabrics and grabbing yourself pieces from these curated collections.

Why I would love to make a Digging for Pineapples Quilt one day….

I told you there was a reason for choosing the pineapple on the beach photo. So here it is. It is a sentimental story from my family history, and has likely become better over the years with telling. I know it to go something like this.

Many years ago, when my dad was young, his family went to the beach for the day. His mother took with them a tin of pineapple for the family to share for dessert.  Thinking it would be nicer cold, she buried it in the wet sand to cool down. She marked the burial site with a stick and went back to enjoying the outing with her family.

However, when it came time to eat, of course the tide had come in and washed the stick away. Unperturbed, my grandmother thought she knew where the tin was buried , so she grabbed a spade and started enthusiastically digging in the sand. But to no avail. After a while, a gentleman who had been watching her, approached my grandmother and politely inquired why she was digging. She simply replied “I am digging for pineapple”. Apparently the gentlemen just gave her a look that he probably hoped was understanding and politely went on his way. Well, what could he say?!!

Of course, the pineapple was never found, at least not by my family. But the hilarity of the moment has lasted decades, and it was a story my grandmother told me several times. She has since passed away at the ripe old age of 99, and one day I would love to make a memory quilt of “Digging for Pineapples”.

What my Digging for Pineapples Quilt would be like

A Digging for Pineapples quilt would be a precious addition to my quilting story. I am thinking scrappy flying geese on white. The triangles can represent the spikes on pineapples and the act of digging. Of course, there would be 99 triangles. I think my grandmother would have liked the idea.

Summer Crush Mosaic Colour Inspiration Week

If you want to follow my thoughts around the Summer Crush mosaic contest for the rest of the week, I will be adding the links here. 

On Tuesday we looked at the colours of Ice-cream Tones. Pinks and yellows, with a little brown and blue added for interest.

On Thursday we explored the light happiness of hot pinks and aqua in a colour scheme called Flamingoes in the Pool.

And on Friday, we got more grown up again with two colour boards – Hazy Days and Blood Oranges & Mint.

Credit

Today’s photo of the pineapple on the beach is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not required to use the photos, but I love to give credit where credit is due, and am always grateful to people who contribute to open source communities. So I would like you to know that this lovely photo was provided by Evi Radauscher via Unsplash. Be sure to check out her collection of photos on Unsplash.com.
Evi Radauscher

For colour inspiration for your quilts in your inbox weekly follow along by subscribing to this blog. Or follow Clever Chameleon Quilt Colour Inspiration on Pinterest and pin your favourite colour palettes to try later. 

P.S. If you would like to use Evi’s photo or another Colour Inspiration Tuesday photo for your own projects, you can easily find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.