Is Purple a Neutral?

I was watching a video of HollyAnne Knight of String & Story prepare a quilt to be long armed when she posed the idea that purple is in fact a neutral color thread. And I think she’s right!

Today’s finished quilt is maybe one of my favorites (though it does change occasionally). Having fallen in love with Ruby Star’s Animal Animal line when it first came out, I impulse bought a layer cake, and then had to figure out what pattern I could even make with one layer cake. Allison Ramsing to the rescue. I combined some low volume fat quarters with Animal Animal and got this gorgeous and full of color quilt top.

Then of course comes the question: how do I quilt this?

With such a structured pattern, I wanted a quilt design that would be a little more fluid against the points and right angles. Traditional designs like the baptist fan used here and orange peels feel so special to me.

Once I chose the design, I laid out a few options of thread I had available and I was really drawn to the way the purples looked against both the colors of the quilt as well as the whites and creams. And since some of the background squares were more cream than white, I wasn’t loving how the white on its own looked.

I chose the lighter of my purple options and like I said, this may be one of my favorite quilts I’ve made. The purple fits the quilt so well.