This post, Decadent Colors from March 21, 2008, has been one of the most popular posts on my blog, as a result of internet searches for "blue brown wedding".  It really is a gorgeous color combination.

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1. Teal, 2. 3rd interpretation of Brown and Turquoise, 3. Teal and turquoise, 4. wool - brown and aqua, 5. YOC2: brown + blue ribbon, 6. Aqua Green Plaid Dog Harness, 7. brown lime Necklace, 8. Blue & Brown Wedding Cake, 9. aqua water and green grass, 10. Brown with Aqua Waves Purse, 11. Fiber Art Pendant - Orbiting Moons #3, 12. Brown-and-Blue Swap: From Kerflop, 13. 4 blue and 1 brown, 14. aqua green, 15. EtsyChocLimeDuck2, 16. brown and blue inspiration



I love these colors together. The blue/teal/green combination reminds me, of course, of the Gulf of Mexico and the ocean ... looking at them it's easy to get lost, transported to a sailboat somewhere called Nowhere. The dark brown is so strong. Love it.

And so I had to make a quilt, because one can never make too many quilts, I say.



I've been gathering these fabrics over the last few months, along with a bunch of others that use brown ... I've decided brown is the new turquoise/teal, it goes with everything and looks decadent.

This quilt was initially inspired by this one created by One Shabby Chick. If you haven't visited her site yet you must. She uses such wonderful fabrics and creates the neatest things.

To make this quilt I cut the darker fabrics into shorter pieces (2-6" long) all with a 5" width. I cut the lighter pieces into longer strips (6-10" long) 2.5" wide. I then sewed two really long strips, one with each width of fabric. When I thought they were long enough I sewed the two together, cut strips the length I wanted, and sewed the newly cut strips together. Pretty simple.

The quilting is done both in the ditch and in big random circles. To do the circles I traced two different sized circles onto freezer paper. I pressed the freezer paper onto the quilt, stitched, removed the freezer paper, repositioned it, stitched, and repeated. I did pin the freezer paper on the larger circles after the first two, the piece of paper was so large that it was a little harder to work with.

Oh, I also tried spray basting for the first time. I was very hesitant but read some good online reviews and thought it'd be fun to try (and a time saver). Overall I was happy with it. I did do some pinning, just to be safe, but not nearly as much as usual. Pretty cool stuff.

Below is a little idea of the progress at the store, kind of "before" and "during" pictures. This is just one room, about 1/3 of the total store area, the other larger part of the store is still pretty full. This room should be completely empty early next week.