June 2026 Quilt Colour Inspiration
I couldn't wait to work with these gorgeous peach, pink, purple and blue gradient this month. The photo makes me want to go on vacation, and the colours are gorgeous to play with.
Image courtesy of sarahreneaclark.com
Fabric swatches for June 2026
Having colours on the screen as inspiration is one thing, but as quilters we need to be able to find them in fabric collections as well. I'm using the QuiltySolid app to put together fabric collections of some common solids brands.
- Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton: Plum, Creamsicle, Woodrose, Candy Pink, Amethyst, Prussian
- Moda Bella Solids: Concord, Coral, Rose Water, Peony, Night Sky, Royal
- Andover Fabrics Century Solids: Pressed Flower, Peach, Dawn, Girly Girl, Wisteria, Navy
- Art Gallery PURE Solids: Verve Violet, Grapefruit, Miami Sunset, Sweet Pink, Amythyst, Heart of the Ocean
- HEX codes, to look up other brands: #745B71, #FF9977, #E2888E, #FC81B0, #7D628D, #1F3450
Always check these in person, though. The app gives the closest colours by hue, saturation, and value, to the HEX code entered, but they may not look quite right together in person. Substituting a different shade for one of the fabrics might work better.
Mockups of real quilt patterns
This was such a fun colour palette to play with this month. I love the colours anyway, and they play together really nicely, too. One thing that surprised me was how much better they look on a cream background as opposed to my usual default of bright white.
First up is Bar Code. This is a pattern I like to play with a lot just to see what various colour combinations do to it. It can also change looks a bit depending on how I group the colours into blocks. This time I had 6 colours to play with, so all the "slots" in Bar Code were taken up, but another fun variation is always which colour to add when I only have 5 in my inspo image.
I really like how this colour combination looks on a light cream background, but I also wanted to see if it would pop more on a darker chocolate brown.
The navy blue is almost a little too dark for this, but it still stands out against the chocolate.
Next up is Line Dance, which is always a bit of a challenge but fun to see what I can do with it.
I liked the cream background from the Bar Code so much I used it here, too.
Star Gems is one I don't often use for these mockups because it's a block pattern rather than a full quilt. But I had an inkling that this colour combination would go really well with it, so I gave it a try, and I'm very happy I did. This might just be my summer scrappy quilt.
And here is what a bunch of these blocks would look like put together in a quilt. Aren't those colours gorgeous?
And lastly, I've been teaching my Improv For Planners workshop a few times lately and was thinking of starting a new version myself, so I wanted to see what this colour combination would look like. I'm not quite sure yet how much I like it, I think it could do with some Cream accents as well.
What do you think? Would you try this colour combination on a future quilt?
Hi Gennie, I think that’s a bit more than what I can answer in a blog comment, but you’ve given me an idea for a future blog post to explain how I do this. In a nutshell, a couple of ways to “see” what a fabric really looks like is to put it together with others, and only have as much of it showing as your patch size. Then take a photo and look at it, for some reason photos always give a better overview. Another option is to cut patch-sized windows out of a sheet of paper and place that over top of the fabric in question so you see how much will be visible.
For digital mockups, there are options like PreQuilt or QuiltInk online that let you mock up quilt patterns.
Love the colour inspirations; however, need some help using it. Just wondering how to determine how much of any colour should be used to give the quilt a stunning look – with just the right amount of pop and cohesion. Any advice – I have limited budget so do not subscribe to software programs where you can test it out.
Second question – how do you find the fabric for the colours in the inspiration especially if you don’t want just solids or low volume. How do you figure out what will the colour read be on a print fabric (med size prints) as it will be cut into smaller pieces. And whether or not the prints in the fabric will detract from the quilt design?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, advice and expertise.