Bold Colours Simple Design

This quilt began as a spin off from curtains for the playroom which in turn was a spin off of this wonderful bright stripy IKEA rug.

I'd been keeping this rug safely rolled up waiting to re-do the playroom properly. But we got it out for a party and everyone loved it and wanted to keep it out. So I decided to make bright and cheery playroom curtains to go with it.

I delved into my fabric stash and pulled out all my brights and themed kiddie prints. These I interspersed with batiks and stripes and spots.

The curtains were a big hit and there were lots of squares left over. So I decided to go ahead and make a quilt for Peter. I'd just got a Janome 6600 which I use for piecing and Peter, who is 9, loved all the gadgets on it. So it became a mother son project. I guided the fabric and he operated the foot pedal and pushed the thread cutter button. Very soon we had this great 'favourite things' quilt all pieced. I backed it in a cuddly blue fleece and quilted it with loops and hearts.

I needed just the right thread for the project and found a King Tut that was perfect. Cleopatra #921 was a variegated machine quilting thread that had all the colours of the quilt in a precise one-inch colour change.

Against the bright background of these saturated colours, this bright thread acts as a 'neutral' - it blends into the pieced squares creating texture without calling attention to itself.

This variegated King Tut thread reads as a neutral against the brightly coloured pieced top

I found that the bold colours and simple design worked well together. The piecing and quilting designs were so simple. The bold bright fabrics combined with the bold and bright lines of stitching worked together to make this quilt something special - Peter loves it!