Fabric Palette Friday #20: High Top Mountain
Happy Fabric Palette Friday! Over on the ‘gram, I revealed my latest handwork project today, a baby quilt I’ve been lovingly working on for months for my newest nephew. I’ll share more about it here next week, but I thought it might be fun to use the quilt’s fabric scheme for today’s palette.
At my brother’s request, I designed the quilt based on the cover art of Sturgill Simpson’s “High Top Mountain” album, a favorite of his and my sister-in-law. The cover art is the work of Jim Harris, and it was a true delight to turn his lovely work into another piece of art that I know will be cherished. In looking at the album cover, I wanted to recreate not only the color scheme (brightened up just a bit) but also the feel of the prints used in the art, so I played around for a long time auditioning what seemed like every piece of fabric in my stash. I laid my background and templates down on the floor and then switched back and forth between looking at the album cover and placing a new piece of fabric.
(Left) My finished quilt. (Right) Sturgill Simpson “High Top Mountain” album cover art (image courtesy of Simpson; cover art by Jim Harris).
The cover art includes an interesting transition from very soft, almost pastel prints at the top (the sky and sunbeams) to more saturated jewel tones toward the bottom, so it required a huge range of colors (if I’m counting correctly, I think 43 in all!). I also wanted to make sure every appliqué piece used a different fabric. In the end, I think I only ended up having to purchase one peachy print and two purples (bright purple is apparently a big hole in my stash), which I was pretty happy with. Let’s just say it’s a good thing the quilt didn’t include any reds, ha!
As you might imagine, the fabrics are from a large range of designers, but the most heavily represented include Carolyn Friedlander, Alison Glass, and Elizabeth Hartman. The latter two always have such great saturated prints, and all three include wonderful basics in their lines, which was just what this quilt needed. I wanted prints that would add interest without taking over.
It was also fun to try to find prints that reflected the space they were being used for: swooping strokes and bird-like designs in the clouds; flowers, leaves, strawberries, and grass-like crosshatches in the fields; and watery prints for the river.
I can’t wait to share more about this quilt! Leave a comment and let me know what colors you’re working with this week and feel free to join in on Instagram using #fabricpalettefriday to share your own creations.
