Staying in the safe zone

I've got a few weeks to pull fabric for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt for 2013 called Celtic Solstice.

Everyone knows Bonnie is a fabulous resource for all of us quilters.  I love joining into quilt cam and had lots of fun last year making a smaller version of Easy Street.   I kept it safe last year and made the background a solid white and used fabric from one designer (Kate Spain) in the quilt.  I was thrilled with the results and had so much fun in the process.

Bonnie very much encourages you to dive into your scrap bin and make the quilt as scrappy as possible.  This year's colors are blue, orange (rust), yellow and green plus a background color.  You can go with any other color combination as long as there is contrast.

I don't have an overflowing scrap bin of small pieces.  A lot of my quilts are made from layer cakes with some yardage.  But I do tend to collect and hoard fabric from some favorite designers so I found some adequate amounts of blues and greens from my Sweetwater collection.

I am also thinking of doing this quilt in all solids.  I can always use more solids in my stash so if I had to purchase, that would be ok.

My fabric choices have changed considerably since my early days of quilting.  Ten years ago, I tended to buy everything from a particular LQS - which has since gone out of business - so I tended towards the darker (more traditional?) fabric like that from Thimbleberries.    While I still enjoy the quilts I have in these fabrics, there isn't enough here to satisfy the requirements and I don't really buy more.  I am considering however to start using up these scraps in a leader / end 9 patch with the thought of making Bonnie's Dancing Nine Patch quilt.  If I never finish it, it will be a lot more useful to have a pile of 9 patches that a couple of baskets of odd scraps.

Whatever I decide, I do know that I will play it safe and likely stick to one designer. Purchasing more Sweetwater fabric to round out what I have seems like a fine idea.  

I'm also quite tempted with the new line Scrumptious - and there are colors in the line that meet the requirements.

Decisions, decisions!

Are you joining in?

Happy Stitching!