Colour Scheming: Lupine and Laughter

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

Now that we've reached the end of November, I'm looking forward to starting a new quilt along soon!

Over the past few years, I've enjoyed participating in Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery quilt projects! So far, I've pieced Chilhowie (2022) and Indigo Way (2023), and have Old Town (2024) in progress. None of them have been completely quilted yet, but I do have plans to remedy that soon!

This year's pattern is called Lupine and Laughter and was inspired by the beautiful landscapes of Iceland! The pattern will be available for free on the Quiltville website for the duration of the quilt along, which will run into January 2026, then will be moved to the store for purchase.

I'm excited to start my own version of this mystery quilt soon, but I have some other projects I need to finish up first. However, I have done some planning and preparation for Lupine and Laughter! Let's take a look!

The Original Colour Scheme

For the original colour scheme, Bonnie Hunter proposes a neutral background, with pink, purple, and pale blue accent colours.

Based on my past experience with her mystery quilt alongs, this is a pretty common formula for colour selection; light, neutral background fabric plus three or four contrasting accents.

It's also very common for the accents to have different degrees of contrast. For example, the purple has a lot of contrast against the background, but the pale blue has less.

My Colour Scheme

For my own version of the Lupine and Laughter pattern, I'm planning something a little different!

Over the past few years, I've chosen some very bright and bold colours for my mystery quilts. This year, I've decided to change things up with a misty, low contrast colour scheme!

I was hoping to evoke the feeling of being above the clouds at sunset, so I'm planning to use a lot of pale purples and pinks for most of the colours!

For a bit of contrast, I'll incorporate various golds and oranges, like the last beams of sunlight and the lit windows of houses, as well as some paler silvery tones like the first stars, and some very dark grey-blacks like the approaching darkness of night time!

To see how this colour combination would feel in a Bonnie Hunter pattern, I've mocked them up using Chilhowie, Indigo Way, and Old Town!

I'm pretty happy with the effect of the colour combination, though I have no way of knowing if my choices will end up being thematically appropriate to the pieced pattern. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Fabric Pull

With colours chosen, the next step was to find some appropriate fabric!

When I was visiting my Mom last week, I started by going through my own fabric that's stored in her basement. I was able to find a lot of what I needed, I think about two thirds of the necessary fabric, then bought the rest of what I needed while we were out fabric shopping!

Unfortunately, we are looking forward to a pretty rainy week, so the lighting isn't great for photography and my fabric looks quite a bit darker than it is in person, but you can still see the three shades of purple; pinkish in the top left, blueish on the right, palest at the bottom.

Since the colours I'm using are so similar, I'll have to be considerate of which prints are going to end up right beside each other. This might be a bit of a challenge since the pattern is a mystery quilt, but I think I'm up to it!

For the contrasting accent fabrics, I was able to pull everything from my stash!

Since there's a variety of different colours and values for this, it was pretty easy to find appropriate prints, especially the white starry print that matches my theme as well as my colour scheme!

My Lupine and Laughter quilt is based on a design by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.

Finishing Old Town

Now that I've got fabric in hand and the first round of piecing instructions available, I'm really excited to get started on Lupine and Laughter! But looking back at my Autumn goals, I'm reminded there's something I need to finish first.

While visiting Mom, I pulled out my Old Town project box to bring home with me!

When I left off, I had made 21 of the 25 total blocks, but decided a few of those blocks had particularly intense background colours that didn't quite fit with the rest of the quilt.

With that in mind, I plan to piece six more blocks, as well as sashing, before starting on Lupine and Laughter. And I've already started two of those!

I've finished piecing all the units and got started on assembling them into blocks, but with a showing scheduled for tomorrow, it may still be a few days before I get them finished. We'll have to wait and see!

My Old Town quilt is based on a design by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.

Friends, I'm so excited to finally finish putting together my Old Town quilt and to get started on the new Lupine and Laughter quilt along!

I've managed to coerce my Mom into making it with me this year, and without consulting each other, we both picked colour schemes with a lot of purple and lilac in them, so it will be interesting to see how differently or similarly our quilts turn out!

And if you'd like to quilt along with Bonnie Hunter's Lupine and Laughter pattern too, I'd love to see what colours you're planning to use! Please share your ideas in the comments below or by sending me an email! Or if you share your progress somewhere else online, please let me know where I can find you to follow along!

I can't wait to see what we continue to create together!

Until Next Time Friends, Happy Quilting!

~VA