Red Sky at Night Quilt - My English Paper Pieced (EPP) Version

These colours make me so happy! Anna Maria Horner's last two collections, Our Fair Home and Good Gracious, look so good together, and are probably my favourites of hers in a long time. Our Fair Home has lots of florals, and Good Gracious brings some beautiful knit-inspired basics, pretty leafy prints, and the sweetest animals, and together they are rich and warm and happy. They inspired me to take a scrappy approach to my Red Sky at Night EPP quilt.

I love random scrappy, and do it often, but this was the first time I'd given my scrappy treatment to traditional blocks that were designed for 2 or 3 colours. I'm so happy with the result, but more than that, I loved not needing to settle on fabric combinations throughout the quilt. When I need to do that, I usually spend half the quilt worrying that it's going to be too dark, too pink, or not enough contrast. With this approach, I just cut pieces from each print one at a time, trusting the colour balance I liked from the start would come through in the end.

I also love that I get to see each shape and the lines between them. If you make a star from one colour, you just see points coming out of a centre. When you make it scrappy, you see each beautiful diamond.

I took the time to fussy cut some of the horses and flowers and swans and butterflies. The most striking is the centre of this Castle Wall block. It draws my eye every time I look at the quilt, with its ring of squares giving it focus and contrast. I love it!

I used an old Loominous print by Anna Maria from her old collection of wovens. The grid has a very substle gold thread running through it and is beautiful. I really like how the single background colour lets the saturated prints really POP, and I was glad I didn't choose a scrappy background like I did for my combined machine pieced and EPP version.

I've had this spot above my cutting bench in mind for this quilt since I started it. Isn't it the perfect size? But once I hung it up, my heart sank just a little. So vibrant and gorgeous in my living room with it's large windows and excellent light, here it feels a little dull. Is it the darkness of the corner? Or the slight grey tone of the walls that makes the cream look extra yellow, and the colours a bit too muddy? I can tell you, I've been daydreaming about a cheap and effortless way to test the paint colour theory! I love plain white walls, but not quite enough to make it happen.

The rest of my room, without my intention, has more of a spring palette, and so far, I've put things out for display and only enjoyed them, so it was a bit of a surprise to feel this quilt didn't suit. But for now, I'll keep it there. Perhaps the upcoming summer will change the light temperature in the house, or I'll find a lamp that brightens the corner. I almost wish I'd turned it on point and added big corner triangles like the version in the pattern, so I could enjoy it as a lap quilt, but I just didn't have enough cream to do that. Perhaps it would look better above my bed? Or in the hallway near the back door? I love it so much, I really don't want to just fold it up and pack it away like I usually do. What would you do?

The Red Sky at Night Quilt is made up of 48 machine pieced blocks and 13 EPP blocks, but the pattern includes a special layout if you'd like to just play with the EPP blocks like I have here! Just make sure you check the colours against the room if you want to hang it on the wall like me. ;P

Check it out below!