Quilts Inspired By Art: Introducing Goodbloom

Hello! Welcome to the second month of quilts inspired by art. This month our inspiration comes from this print created by Holly Bartos. I found this print on Pinterest and tracked it down to Holly by way of her Etsy shop goodbloom. Holly has been on hiatus from her Etsy shop for a while, but a note there says that she intends to reopen in early 2016. That is great news. Holly describes her art as retro and whimsical.

I loved this piece of art for a quilt because it offers so much opportunity for techniques, sizes, and interpretations. It would make a perfect fabric postcard, a cute miniquilt or wall hanging, and could also be made as a block that is repeated for a bigger quilt.

Let's break down the pieces of this print. First, the background.

Wait. Let's take a brief pause and do a little clean up. I'm not as far along with this project because the first step was to look at the cream and tan colors of the background and this was the state of my cream and tan fabric.

A few hours later we were in much better shape and can easily find what we need. I have been slowly organizing my fabric into these drawers and this is one of the last sections that needed cleaning up. Nothing like a project for a little motivation!

There are several options for creating the background, which is an actual piece of wood.

I pulled a good selection of light to mediums. These could be improv or strip pieced to form a background similar to the print. Or, a print that contains most of the tones could be used as a single piece. It would be a different look but remember, the original art is an inspiration. We are not necessarily trying to replicate it.

The flowers are primarily red, orange/yellow, and black.

Here is the complete pull. The flowers could be cut shapes that are appliqued to the background or they could be layered with black fabric behind them. The black lines and dots could be machine quilted or hand stitched with embroidery. There are lots of options with this piece and I'm hoping to explore several of them throughout the month.

While there isn't any black and white in the art print, I pulled these because of the line and circle pattern that is similar to those in the flowers. We will see if they make it to any of the finished projects. I was also thinking about doing a cool color version with grays, blues, and greens.

Next week I'll have some sample tops and blocks put together to share along with instructions for how to create one of your own.

Linking up with Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt and Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.