Thinking about Color and Composition

For those who wondered, yes,  washing the Silly Strings quilt and letting it relax and dry flat on the work table did eliminate the waving sides created by the spiral quilting.

I celebrated the finish Monday morning by putting it on the table and enjoying a cuppa in my lime green mug.  Then I threw it on the floor and took a straight on photo.

It might not be obvious, but the colors in this quilt are the same as the one I made a year ago, using the April and December blocks from the 2012 Block Lotto.  

This month the Linky Party topic on the Block Lotto is Color.  These two little quilts have me thinking about how the proportions of the colors you use in a palette can make a big difference. The quilt on top is mostly cream with a dash of turquoise; the quilt on the bottom is pretty much the opposite, mostly turquoise with cream as an accent.  They both have a orangey brick red, yellow green and pale blue. The older quilt has one additional color, a medium blue. 

You can see a sliver of the sisal rug that originally inspired my color choices in the lower left corner of the photo. (Note to self: you really need to vacuum!) When I chose fabrics for the Silly Strings quilt with a plan to put it on the table, I decided to stick with the rug-inspired palette, but use it in different proportions. You can see the (clean) rug, better in this photo from last year (with the photo-bombing cat, Johnny Be Good).

I remember being told or reading rules somewhere about how much of any specific color you should use in a quilt; I think for yellow it was no more than 30%.  It's possible one of the table-topping quilts breaks the old rules for color proportions, but I like them both.  And ever since we used yellow and gold as a background for some liberated basket blocks for the Block Lotto, I've been dying to make a yellow quilt ... sometimes, some rules really are meant to be broken.  If nothing else, the experience is a great way to learn.

I have been asking quilters to suggest (and show) color combinations for the Block Lotto–coming up with new blocks is easy for me, but choosing color ways outside my own taste is a challenge.   I wonder what would happen if we used Sophie's Sisal Rug for color inspiration for a future lotto block color palette?

I am joining the February Linky Party on the Block Lotto with this post.  I'd love for you to blog about color and share your ideas, too.