may’s Quilt Palette: coastal may gray

rich velvet brown, coffee bean, pebble grey, mushroom, vapor grey, and stormy blue

La Bizarra Quilts’ tagline is ‘born in California, based in Carolina,’ because La Bizarra is my alter ego, and I myself was born in California. In San Diego, there are no real discernible seasons. Winter is mild and summer is intense, but they’re both sunny and warm, uncomfortably so, if you ask me.

In San Diego, summer starts late, and is preceded by both May Gray and June Gloom. These are months that most people expect to be warm and sunny, but close to the ocean, the marine layer lingers and instead you get gray skies all day long. (Sometimes you get July gloom, too, but it’s not catchy enough to make the weather reports.) So May Gray and June Gloom were my favorite Southern Californian “seasons”, as a heat intolerant person who burns easily. This month’s palette is an ode to the misty watercolor memories of my youth.

I’ve always spelled the color ‘grey’ but for May Gray purposes, I looked it up, and GRAY is actually the common American spelling. Who knew? I’ve been a British poseur this whole time.

So for May, I leaned into my Southern Californian roots and created a soft neutral selection of quilt mock ups that feel like a CA “spring”: misty, moody and atmospheric. Like a foggy walk on the beach past tourists that clearly expected sun.

Palette Picks: moody may fabrics that fit the bill

I used a muted selection of fabrics from Art Gallery Fabric basics, to a new collection from Libs Elliott, an upcoming release from Ruby Star Society, and even a couple hand-dyed fabrics from Color Connexion to create this month’s mockups.

From Art Gallery fabrics, I went with my favorite of their basics, Decostitch. This modern, geometric abstract print comes in an ever-expanding selection of colors, they read like solids from a distance, and they have a sort of Southwestern, desert vibe that is a good fit with the ‘footprints in beach sand’ look. Pictured above are porcini, skyline blue, and peppercorn Decostitch.

Set to be released at the end of summer, Geometry is Ruby Star Society’s upcoming collaborative collection. According to the designers, the hand drawn geometric designs are all based on “the vintage vibes of double knit polyester fabrics”, albeit on much higher quality, more luxurious fabric substrate. Pictured above are Pixie, Tiles, and Square Dance prints, along with a charcoal gray washi tape print from Rashida Coleman-Hale’s most current collection, Salutations.

These geometric prints do not fit in with the neutral, organic theme of May Gray, but they do fit my own personal aesthetic, and I love how the prints interact with the nature-inspired quilt designs in all of the mock-ups. This kept me from being too literal with my nature interpretations.

Designer Libs Elliott’s Still collection with Andover Fabrics features a rich array of neutral shades and fun abstract prints in both geometric and more nature-inspired designs. Bursts (pictured above in pewter gray) has a mid-century atomic starburst appeal, while Half Dome (pictured above in Greige) has a more organic, lunar reflection quality.

For an extra splash of May Gray beach inspiration, I threw in a couple hand-dyed fabrics from Color Connexion. I am no expert in hand dying fabric (maybe someday!), but I believe my selections were ice dyed, where dyes are mixed with ice and left to melt their pigments all over cotton fabric, creating gorgeous fractal patterns that look like light reflected through water.

Perfect Quilts for The Modernist

modified Half Light quilt mock-up in May Gray palette

I can see this moody mod quilt, based on the Half Light quilt pattern by Taralee Quiltery, in the most stylish of mid-century modern homes. There’s something very minimalist and essential about the way this plays with contrast and negative space. I wrote quite a lot about its mid-century aesthetic in this post about an earlier Half Light quilt I made.

Rendered in these warm foggy neutrals, but with the bold zip of cool lavender in the speckled print and within the hand-dyed fabric of the lower half moon, it has a calm sophistication that anchors a room with its understated elegance. And if you knew how soft and silky the finish of those hand-dyed fabrics are, you would see how luxurious it is too.

A Neutral Quilt, but make it Maximalist

Scrappy Trip Around the World ripples mock-up

My favorite ever quilt pattern/technique and my go-to for maximalist aesthetic, the Scrappy Trip Around the World quilt. While most of the May Gray quilts lean into minimalism to some extent, the Scrappy Trip simply could never. Because it is made up of such a wide variety of prints in every possible shade of this palette, it’s a visual feast of texture and tone. Each block features eight different fabrics (at least the way I make them), and together they create a design that shimmers with movement and depth, like light shifting through layers of fog, or like the tide rolling up over the sand.

The scrappy construction brings energy and an eclectic charm, making it feel collected over time, because the fabrics usually have been! It’s like a curated mantel full of tchotchkes and souvenirs or an overflowing bookshelf. It’s both an aesthetic expression of a home, and a functional part of a home.

Block placement is a particularly fun element of Scrappy Trip quilts for me. I usually place them in a diamond pattern, because I love the multi-faceted 3-dimensional quality. But this time, I tried them out in a rippled, chevron pattern, to mimic the ocean tides or the horizon lines in the May Gray palette inspiration picture from above. I do love it. It reminds me of my favorite dress from long ago, an iconic Missoni knit in a variety of emerald greens that I scored secondhand. I’m going to think of this pattern as a Missoni knit pattern from now on.

But just for funsies, the exact same blocks, with my usual diamond placement:

Scrappy Trip Around the World diamonds mock-up

Perfect Quilt for a Dream Dorm Room

Rocky Coast quilt mock-up in cooler May Gray palette

While it obviously would look great anywhere, the Rocky Coast quilt pattern by Toad and Sew is my pick for a dream dorm quilt this month. The Rocky Coast quilt in the May Gray palette brings a little edge to the fog. With its bold angles and contrast, it’s got that perfect mix of grit and calm.

This palette has a great industrial feel to it, too: soft cement, charcoal, muddy water, and smoky quartz. It’s a quilt that feels a little rebellious, but still cozy. This quilt is away from home for the first time, getting a graphic design degree, but still calling home twice a month and hoping you will do its laundry.

This would be an ideal quilt for a dorm room or first apartment. It’s graphic enough to make a statement, stylish enough to feel grown-up, and low-maintenance in vibe (and low-maintenance in actual maintenance, too, because those dorm washing machines are shared by all). Whether it’s thrown over a twin XL or layered atop a futon (do people still have futons?), this Rocky Coast quilt brings cool, collected energy to help it stand out in a sea of IKEA basics.

Classic quilt style, modern palette

The classic Storm at Sea quilt is about movement. Rolling currents, shifting perspectives, the illusion of curves in a sea of straight lines. It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope, although that’s a whole other classic quilt pattern.

What makes this version sing is the careful placement of color and the modern fabric palette. The graphic precision of the Storm at Sea pattern pairs beautifully with the subtle gradients and tonal shifts of the palette. A bright white-leaning gray background highlights the precision of the points and angles, which are what give it those faux curves as your eye moves across the whole. The contrast and the soft gradient towards the warm bright center shades make it less of a roiling tempest and more of a ray of light through the clouds.

I see this quilt in a modern farmhouse, with flax-colored linens and white shiplap walls complementing the bright background color and the sea connotations. It would also fit in quite well in a bright Scandinavian style space, with light wood tones highlighting the warmth in the center colors, and helping to balance the dark and stormy outer gradient.

The Knuffel Quilt: A Neutral Gradient Hug

The Knuffel Quilt mock-up in May Gray palette

Of course, I always like to include a mock-up of the quilt palette with one of my own patterns, so here is the Knuffel quilt in May Grays. While I created the Knuffel quilt pattern to feature fussy cut prints, I opted not to here. I instead played up the secondary design, which I think looks like a brioche knit stitch. Making each row a different shade in the May Gray gradient mimics the look of rows of knitting.

Knuffel is a Dutch word for hug or cuddle, and while I usually take that to mean the blocks are hugging the central featured print, this time I take it to mean a cuddly knit sweater. It’s best to dress in layers during the month of May on the coast. You can use this as a cozy hug to keep out the chill of those sea breezes.

Were this an actual quilt instead of a digital mock-up, I would play with that sweater look even more by using an edge-to-edge cable knit quilting motif, like Sweater Weather or Cable Knit from Long Arm League.

If you’re interested in making your own Knuffel quilt, it is available as a pdf pattern in my shop.

Patterns

Best Quilt Option for minimalists

Last month, I used the Looper quilt pattern as a minimalist option for the April spring color palette, and guess what? I LOVED it. I am not a minimalist by any stretch of the imagination, but I just loved the limited spring color palette and the retro swoosh of this modular design.

So, sorry to be repetitive, but I’ve done it again. This is the Looper quilt pattern by Miss Make.

Looper quilt mock-up in neutral color palette

This Looper quilt uses solids in all five of the original colors from the May gray palette as closely as I could match them, chocolate browns, cool gray, soft cream, and one pop of silvery lavender. With the gradient of color, the loops become sculptural, like I’ve scooped through the seaglass blue background to reveal layers of sediment within. The cloudy seaglass blue adds just the right hit of unexpected brightness against the neutrals.

quilts that almost have me loving neutrals

These mock-ups turned out so lovely, I’ve almost converted into a minimalist. Almost. I’ve already got my palette planned for June, and it has enough neon to bring me back to my senses. But this was an interesting exploration of neutral shades and nuance, and a walk through the misty watercolor memories of my Southern California overcast springs. I must remember that quiet colors can still tell bold stories.

You might be interested in past monthly color palette posts…

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