All Printed Patterns Are Now BACK IN STOCK!
Welcome to the the Running Stitch Quilts Color Inspiration blog series! In this new series, I'll be diving into the world of color and bringing you practical color palettes. Every month, I'll pick a set of 3 or 4 foundational colors to use in building out fun and expressive color palettes that you can apply to my quilt patterns or any future quilts. Keeping reading for some quilty inspiration!
For July, I wanted to pull inspiration from a classic, traditional quilt pattern of mine. Rivermill is a modern quilt pattern that takes on the classic pinwheel block. This block-based quilt is a versatile quilt to make because it can be made with fat quarters or half yards. Due to its block-based nature, it can easily be scaled up or down beyond the four sizes include in the pattern!
Before diving into the fun color inspiration palette, I wanted to let you know that the July Pattern of the Month, Rivermill, is on sale through the end of July 2024! You can save $3 on both the printed and digital versions of the Rivermill quilt pattern.
Where were we? Oh yes - the July Color Inspo!
Just like the previous Color Inspo months, I pulled my base color inspiration from the cover quilt of this month's Pattern of the Month. The Rivermill cover quilt was made with Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton solids in the colors Windsor, Cadet, Dresden Blue, Cloud, Sky, Taupe, Parchment, Haze, Shitake, and Ash. This was my first time using brown in a quilt and I have to say - this is one of my favorite color combinations now.
I had so much fun mixing and matching these colors together as I made the Rivermill quilt. This is such a classic color combo, so any color pairing I made turned out fantastic! If you want to look at more pretty pictures of this quilt, check out my Rivermill cover quilt blog post here.
I know I mentioned that the blue and brown color combination was one of my favorite ones, but I figured it would be too difficult to use as a base color palette for this challenge. So I decided to go with a few of the blues for this round! My main colors for the July Color Inspo are Cadet, Dresden Blue, Cloud, and Shitake in Kona Cottons. But since I love Michal Miller Cotton Couture solids so much, I translated them over to that line to get Denim, Delft, Ice Blue, and Haze!
For this first color palette, I leaned into the blues quite a bit and added a teal to the mix. I wanted to go for a "beachy" feel here. The Teal and Denim remind me of the depths of the water, The Delft and Ice Blue remind me of the light reflecting off of the surface, and the Earth and Linen remind of me the sand and pebbles on the beach!
The Rivermill quilt mock-up below really shows off those teal colors in play here. I love how these colors mix together in this quilt pattern. The Noughts and Crosses quilt mock-up screams baby quilt to me!
For this second color palette, I threw some pinks and tans in with the blues! I'm going to be honest, when I think of blue, I automatically think of pink. So this color palette felt like a no-brainer! Cameo and Aulait have my heart in this palette, which balance really well against the Bamboo and Ginger colors.
The pops of pink and tan in the Rivermill quilt mock-up make me so happy. These colors seem to work so well with each other - especially seeing them mixed around in the Hurrication quilt mock-up!
In this last color palette, I had a bit of a harder time. You see, I don't often use greens in my quilts. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I reached for green, actually! So this last color palette was a true challenge. But I am super happy with how these colors look together - I might actually try to use them in a future quilt! The rich colors of Basil and Pine add so much depth to this palette, while the Earth and Pistachio do a great job of grounding.
The Rivermill quilt mock-up feels so much like a "rainy forest" quilt. I love how the earthy tones play together in this quilt. The Chevron Stars quilt mock-up feel lighter and like a breath of fresh air - I think mostly due to the use of Nickel to separate those stars!
Playing with color is one of my absolute favorite things to do! Being able to blend colors together to create such dynamic color palettes for my handmade quilts makes my creative soul so happy. I invite you to try out one of my June Color Inspiration color palettes in your next quilt! Whether you use the exact fabrics or use them as a jumping-off point for your own palette, I'd love to see! Share your quilts made with my color palettes on Instagram using the hashtag #RSQColorInspo or tag me in your photo. :)
Stay tuned for next month's Color Inspiration. Until then, happy sewing!
