The Skeeter Bug Quilt

By education and practice, I am an interior designer, with a focus in healthcare and aged care. Most successful interior designers have a natural eye for colour. You just instinctively know what colours work well together, even if you don’t know why. That Colour Theory course you’ll take along the way just explains what you already instinctively know.

But even designers can get stuck, a bit like writer’s block, I suppose. I know my current tendency is toward blues, greens and teals. I sometimes struggle to try something new. What to do?! That’s when I just get back to nature . . . or at least the environment around me that I find pleasing.

As an example, I wanted to design a signature Skeeter Bug quilt. My inspiration is my little Yorkshire Terrier, Rachael Olivia, aka Skeeter Bug. She’s brown, black and tan. Not exactly the colours I wanted for my ‘signature’ quilt.

Fortunately, there’s an app for that! Pantone Studio works with the camera on your phone to show you the colours in your favourite subjects. I just open the app, point it at my little Skeeter Bug, and it shows me the brown, black and tan, as well as the pink and white of her collar. Bingo!

I chose a diagonal orientation for the quilt to suggest the constant movement of my little muse. She may be getting on a little in years - 14 years old last November - but she still has two speeds – full-on and full-stop. A little more full-stop these days. Anyway, while at a glance it looks like I may have sewn on the bias, or assembled the rows diagonally, each row is sewn left to right.

The design uses 4-square, half square triangle and hidden square blocks. Though I couldn’t spin all the seams, I did wherever possible to reduce bulk, and took care to press seams so they would nest with the row above and below.

My original design had a bit more white than the final quilt top. Thankfully, my mother-in-law had some white fabric she was ready to part with. Win! I’m not certain, but I believe it is a cotton-linen blend. It definitely burns like a natural fibre (yes, I tested it). It was a wide fabric as well, so no piecing required for the backing. Double win!

I decided to use a modern facing for the quilt instead of a traditional binding. While the prints in the quilt are traditional, the design and the inspiration are completely modern.

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