Amy Smart, Diary of A Quilter, Modern Gray and White Neutrals Quilt
I had lunch with a quilting friend recently, and she was stumped. She’d been racking her brain trying to figure out how to make a white quilt for her niece. That’s all the direction she had gotten from the niece, she wanted a “white” quilt. It made me think about how we get inspiration for the quilts we make, especially the ones intended as gifts.
Since the niece is a modern gal, I figured she might not actually want a quilt made out of only white fabric, so I googled some images of neutral quilts and screenshot a few of the more modern ones. I sent this batch of photos to my friend and told her to pass them on to her niece to see if she liked any of them. Well, in minutes the niece had enthusiastically responded, and now we had a plan! It really made me appreciate the benefits of having a “road map”... just give me a photo and I can go from there! Don’t leave me twisting in the wind with some vague idea of the right shade of peachy pink you're planning for the nursery! Haha!
I thought I'd share how I build my “road maps” for the different quilts I design! This is the way I stay on track and don’t lose sight of the “road”. I always start with a collection of inspirational photos. I often just do a google image search for the theme I’m going for and any color inspiration that would narrow the search. I don’t always build these fancy collages, most of the time I just screenshot the images and put them in their own little album on my phone. For instance, I could search for “neutral home decor”, or “calm home decor”. You can see the direction I was going with this color palette. I wanted something with a fresh, but calm, almost natural feeling 'plant' vibe… succulents to be exact :)
Here are the fabrics I collected after building my road map! I can’t wait to show you this quilt! It is everything I was aiming for, and I love it!
Here is another one of my maps that I did a while back.
This is the collection of projects I made out of those fabrics!
Here is my map for the icicle blue version of Snowflake Lane.
And, this is the inspiration board for the Fresh Fruit quilt. I really try to catch the vibe and the colors in these collections, I think it helps when picking the perfect shades, not just going with something that’ll “work”
I hope this was helpful!
Happy Sunday everyone,
Krista