Lupine and Laughter: Accents

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

Hope you're not tired of hearing about Lupine and Laughter yet, because I'm not done talking about it!

So far, I've been really focused on the lilac values in this quilt and haven't put a lot of thought into the accent fabrics since the very beginning of the planning process back in November. But after working out my fabric gradient placement a few weeks ago, I've been thinking a lot more about what accent fabrics I should use!

I have a few ideas to share with you this week and would love to hear your thoughts before I jump into piecing! Let's take a look!

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

Gradient Changes

Before looking at accent fabrics though, I had a thought about the gradient I shared last time.

After laying out the colours, in this mock up, I was interested to see how my background lilac would look with the gradient running perpendicular to that of the pinkish and blueish gradients.

Rotating the lilac background layer brings us this interesting alternate gradient:

There isn't a huge difference between this one and the original one—both have the variety of different levels of contrast per block that I was hoping to achieve—but looking at this new version has got me thinking, is it possible to have a different combination of three lilac prints in each block while maintaining the gradient?

After taking a look at the first version of the gradient, I found several blocks that used the same combination of prints, but after rotating the background gradient, there are only two blocks that match!

It will be easy enough to make a slight change to the fabric placement to make all the different blocks unique, so this is the effect I want to use!

Accent Colours

After playing around with the background gradient without any accent colours for so long, I'm excited to take a look at a mock up that includes them!

Note that I've just dropped colours randomly into the accent areas and that I'm still planning to not to plan the accent colour placement in my actual quilt.

And here's how it comes out!

It's quite a change from the lilac gradient alone, and I almost feel like some of the colours are too intense for the soft and dreamy feeling I've been aiming for.

Making changes to a digital mock up is pretty fast and easy, so I might as well try out a few other options!

The first thing I thought of was to desaturate my accent colours to really pale silvers and golds, almost white in fact, and while the effect is pretty, I really miss the contrast added by some of the brighter colours.

So next, I aimed for a middle ground between the two!

That brought me to these softer, pastel accent colours, which have that dreamy effect I was aiming for, while still adding a little contrasting colour!

But comparing this mock up to the original accent colours, it feels a little washed out.

Based on that, I wondered if the only reason that my original colours feel so intense is because of the extreme contrast between the back pieces and the rest of the colour scheme? I really like the paler greys in my other mock ups, so let's try replacing just the blacks in that original version!

That change has made a big difference!

Though the effect of it is pretty similar to the previous pastel version, the slightly more vibrant yellows and oranges appeal to me a lot more, so I think this is the accent colour scheme I'll be using!

I'm also going to set a few rules for myself regarding the fabric I use for my accent colours, I don't plan to cut into any yardage, rather I'll be working from my scraps and remnants to get as much variety in the accent fabrics as I can!

Friends, with all that figured out, I'm more excited than ever to start piecing my own version of the Lupine and Laughter quilt!

If you've been working on this pattern yourself, I would love to hear about your progress! Please share photos and stories in the comments below, by email, or tag my on your posts on Instagram!

And with March coming up at the end of this week, I'll be sharing another Midnight Circus update next week, so I hope you'll join me then!

Until Next Time Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA