Toad-Spo: October quilt color palette
What signifies the quilt-making season more than fall? To me, autumn is a magical time of the year. I can sense myself unwinding from the highs of summer, ready to hunker down and take both a physical and mental break. I simply want to slip into a cozy sweater, sew, whip up some delicious soup, and settle in with Gilmore Girls.
Whether you are a fan of Halloween or not, this October quilt color palette captures the moody essence of the month without being overly "in-your-face Halloween." When I create holiday-inspired quilts, I prefer them to transcend the holiday and still serve as a successful color scheme. Instead of using bright, obvious oranges and purples, I've opted for a combination of muted or "off tones" to achieve a dark, autumn-inspired quilt.
Purple and orange are both tertiary colors on the color wheel, meaning they are created by mixing two different primary colors (orange = red/yellow and purple = blue/red). They are positioned opposite each other on the color wheel and are considered complementary colors. Complementary colors can often create a somewhat jarring combination, but by incorporating various tones, shades, and neutrals, you can craft a beautiful color palette.
Trending Patterns:
Mood Collage for October Quilt Color Palette
The Quilt - Intertertwined
This month’s featured Toad & Sew quilt pattern is the Intertwined Quilt! Intertwined is my newest quilt pattern that was released at the end of September this year! This pattern was inspired by our camp-themed wedding, which aimed to authentically reflect our personalities and shared history. This quilt, a labor of love, symbolizes the intertwining of our lives with its carefully chosen colors in the cover quilt mirroring our wedding's color scheme. It serves as a tangible reminder of our love and shared experiences, proudly displayed at our reception!
The Intertwined quilt pattern offers various layout and size options, allowing you ample choices to personalize it according to your preferences. It is beginner-friendly and invites you to delve into the personalization aspect of this pattern while also being a quick and easy project! This is a perfect quilt project for the beginning of fall that will make you want to immediately start a second one.
Our October Toad-Spo Intertwined quilt was made entirely of Art Gallery Fabrics print and solid fabrics! On the top, we went with Pure Solids and tried to use as many of the newest Signature Pure Solids designed by Suzy Quilts as possible. This collection of solids feels so “fall” to me and makes for a super impactful quilt! The colors we went with are Truffle, Vanilla Custard, Pampas, Gingerbread, Chocolate, Velvet, Thistle, Haze, and Monet. If you'd like to make this quilt on your own, you can buy the quilt kit here!
You’ll notice that the quilt design separates the required colors into 2 groups or color families. Our October Toad-Spo fabrics can be simplified into orange (Colors 1-4) and purple (Colors 5-8) color families. Within the color families, the fabrics gradient from dark and saturated to light and bright. My favorite way to plug these colors into the quilt is to swap the direction of the gradient within the color families! If you look at the orange blocks, you’ll see that the darkest and most saturated tone, Chocolate, is on the outer edge of the blocks. Alternatively, the darkest, most saturated tone within the purple color family is on the inside. While this is not a required method of pulling fabric for this quilt pattern, it’s one of my favorite ways of playing with the colors!
There are so many ways to customize and make Intertwined unique! But some of those layout options involve cutting up big blocks into smaller pieces. And I know this can be a little scary - who wants to accidentally ruin perfectly good blocks with a cutting error! You can always opt out of this part and sew your full blocks together if you’d like. The full block and the quarter blocks are both so cute so you really can’t go wrong in any decision you make! You might even opt for using the blocks as decoration like the pictures below.
Intertwined is such a great beginner-friendly quilt pattern that shows a modern take on what I’m calling the “courthouse steps meets log cabin” design. The dark Truffle background fabric makes these fall-inspired colors pop! When we saw this quilt being sewn up, our jaws were on the floor. It exceeded our expectations 100x over and is so much better than we could have ever imagined!
Longarm Quilting
Our fabulous longarm quilter for October is of course Ashley Perkins of Hen House Quilting! We are big fans of Ashley around here - not only because she’s a FANTASTIC quilter but also because is a pretty cool chick too! ;) If you are in need of a longarm quilter, we definitely recommend checking out Ashley for your quilting needs!
Since the theme of this quilt is basically laid back and old-school campgrounds, we knew we had to pick a pantograph that gave the same overall feel. We toyed around with the idea of having a mountain-esque feel to it - think triangles and diamonds. While it might have made a really good pairing with this quilt, we ended up choosing this swirly echoing pantograph called Retro Wall. After seeing it stitched into the quilt, we knew we made the right call. It turned out so so good!!
Backing and Binding
The backing fabric for the October Intertwined Toad-Spo sample is this Small Plaid of my Dreams Creme print from Art Gallery Fabrics. Who doesn’t love a great plaid in their fall quilt? This one pairs so well with the colors in the quilt top while also giving the eye a rest with its low volume print. The October Toad-Spo Intertwined quilt was finished out with using Truffle, the same background fabric from the top, as the binding fabric.
We absolutely love how this turned out! Kim and Ashley did such a great job making this Intertwined quilt come to life. If you’d like to make this quilt, you can now grab the quilt pattern on sale through the weekend! Use the code ITOCT20 at checkout for 20% off the Intertwined quilt pattern.
If you’d like to make this quilt a reality, please contact one of these shops!
Maker Spotlight: Kim
Our featured maker this month is Kim! She is from Bloomington, Indiana and learned how to sew from her mother as a young girl. Kim has been quilting for about 12 years and has found that she loves using Essex linens, chambrays, and wovens in her quilt projects! You’ll most likely find at least one blue fabric (if not a whole monochrome blue quilt!) in her quilts because she is a “blue girl through and through.”
Kim finds her inspiration from my other quilty friends and co-workers. She’s lucky enough to work at a quilt shop and is always surrounded by beautiful fabrics, which always gets her creative juices flowing. When she’s in the sewing zone, you’ll often find her streaming NPR or listening to an audiobook. While her sweet beagle sewing sidekick is no longer with her physically, we all know that sweet, loveable spirit is with her every time she’s sewing along! To bring some extra happiness to Kim’s sewing space, she has a flower garden planted outside of her sewing room window where she’s able to watch the hummingbirds and butterflies while she sews.
Fun Facts:
- She’d live in the 50's just for the fashion alone.
- Her favorite food is potatoes - in any form!
- Kim’s dream superpower would be to be able to function well with no sleep
- Amsterdam is where she dreams of living one day!
You all should go check out Kim on Instagram and give her a follow! Kim is always sharing the best project photos. Her profile is such a great place for inspiration!
See the palette in action!
Sky Cabin Quilt
Booths Corner Quilt
Garden Glow Quilt
Cubism Quilt
Available to Toad Circle members only
Open Road Quilt
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