100 Days - Week of Solids - Featured Quilt 5

Today we are featuring a quilt made by Juli Ann Donahue whose work you can see in her flickr stream.  This quilt is a great example of how solids allow you to be creative with your use of color.

What inspired this quilt?

This quilt was my answer to the Robert Kaufman Solids Only Challenge.  The St. Louis Modern Quilt Guild was given the classic palette of Kona solids and as soon as that lovely, little stack of fabric was in my hands I began humming Somewhere Over the Rainbow.   I played around with several designs, but my mind kept coming back to “If happy, little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why, oh why, can’t I?”  Our guild set the guidelines that you could use the charm pack plus two other solids, of which  I opted for a white background and added an orange.  From there, I basically used each charm square for a letter or two in rainbow order.   That challenge was such a fun, little puzzle that we each got to figure out how to put together ourselves, which I feel is the genuine spirit of  modern quilting.  There are no set rules or restrictions.  It’s just creativity, imagination and oh, such gorgeous fabric!

What do you love about using only solids?

Opening a color card of solids is like opening up a brand new box of crayons!  So many gorgeous choices… so versatile… so stylish… so timeless.

Solids are your utility player and your superstar!   What I love most about using only solids is that it instantly gives a quilt a very bold and graphic quality, which is a design that I’m always drawn to.  The quilt design gets boiled down and has a really beautiful clarity.