Color Play on Quilts: BAR HOP color studies

Let's do a little COLOR PLAY on a past quilt pattern and see what it would look like in another collection or in other color families. This month I am revisiting BAR HOP since it is the quilt we are doing for sewing along together in my facebook group "Robin Pickens Sew Happy Community" in July 2025. I am going to try to sew along with this one too!

I designed Bar Hop to go with my Wild Blossoms collection for Moda Fabrics. The ombre, selvage to selvage width-of-fabric print of wildflowers is featured in long panels within the quilt body. These are layered with little bars of the fabric group, cut from Charm Packs or a Layer Cake. There are two sizes of the quilt, an 87" x 84" Queen size and a 51 1/2" x 50" Lap size.

 I've done mockups of other ideas on the lap size since that also includes a border that surrounds the quilt body and it is a nice sized project to do for a sew along. With Wild Blossoms I used Thatched Cream or Navy for my backgrounds. I liked how both of these backgrounds really let all my colors shine. For the border of the quilt, when using the ombre print I flip the print upside down to join end-to-end with the piece next to it. This allows the color ramp to continue smoothly.

I also designed this quilt so you can drop in a lovely focal print that you love instead of the ombre width-of-fabric print. Above I have the Queen Anne's Lace for a border print with 2 Fat Quarters of fabrics alternating in the horizontal interior bands. The blue version uses Blue Bonnet flowers on dark background in the borders and light background in the bands for a very cohesive look.

Since SUPERBLOOM is a sister wildflower group to Wild Blossoms, I thought it would be fun to look at some with a Charm Pack of that group in the vertical bars. 

The mason jar makeshift vases is a Wild Blossoms print and I liked the delicate illustrative look for the borders combined with the same print for the horizontal bands OR the Superbloom pastel ombre wildflowers print for the bands.

Below I use Thatched in Early Dawn light pink for my background with the main floral print of poppies from Superbloom. A charm pack of Superbloom makes all the vertical blocks. I've got the poppies on pink on the top one. The bottom one has the poppies on navy for the border and a combination of pink and navy for the horizontal bands.

And here is Thatched Cinnamon as the background with the poppies on navy. I love how warm and rich this version looks. Just as a side note, I only have a small swatch of the big poppy print in the computer program (I use Adobe Illustrator) so the actual poppy fabric has more variation and color background showing.

How about another collection? This is my WINTERLY line to create seasonal holiday quilts. Christmas Amaryllis lilies create my outer border, either on cream or soft black. The horizontal interior bands use the Triangle Trees print which just happens to use a nice even 2 rows of triangles in the finished size. I've made the small rectangles in red and silver for the top one and in white for the bottom. It is nice to think about those as sparkly white pieces against a dark background. These little elements "dance" around the quilt and can be fun in one color or a scrappy mix of prints. 

These two quilts below use the Triangle Trees fully for interior and exterior border. However, in these cases I have made the right and left outer borders the same fabric as the background. Only the top and bottom are shown as accent fabric and this emphasizes the horizontal feel of the bands. The top quilt has Thatched Pine for background and bottom shows Cream.

SOME SPECIFICS ON YARDAGE AND CUTTING:
If using the triangle tree print or any print that needs fussy cutting or special lining up, I'd suggest getting a little extra fabric so you can adjust when cutting as needed. In this case, I'd recommend getting 2/3 or 3/4 yard of fabric for the horizontal interior bands vs 1/2 yard.

If only using horizontal borders at top and bottom vs the print around all 4 sides, I'd get 1/2 yard for top and bottom and increase that to 2/3 or 3/4 if fussy cutting (as I am here for the triangles). You would also need to add some yardage to the background needs to get the borders on right and left in background color. Increase the background yardage to 1 2/3 (instead of 1 1/8)- that is ONE yard plus 2/3 yard= 1 2/3.

Two more from Winterly. The "Ribbon Birds" is a flowy, elegant print and I've used it for bands and borders with top having 2 fat quarters of prints dividing those bands and the bottom quilt using all birds on green. The bottom Thatched background is Deep Sea and is a nice alternative to Pine to accent the warmer greens of this line.

Just THATCHED on it's own can be fun too in Bar Hop. I've used this "Hygge Happy" palette in some other quilts and enjoy the calm, warm, happy comfort of this combination. The "Beach Party" palette has more aqua and surf colors with summery party friends. These work best with 2 colors in each horizontal band and you can use Fat Quarters and also cut from those for smaller vertical bars or get Fat Eighths of these colors if you don't want additional cutting space. For both of these, I tried a split color border with a lighter and darker "L" shape. I like how this brings more variety to the contrast of colors.

Hygge Happy uses Washed Linen for background. Buttermilk and Toast on borders. Bars with Buttermilk and Toast and Sugar Rose, Tangerine, Chartreuse and Green Curry. Add in vertical bar colors of Sprig, Berry, Burgundy, Petal, Primrose, Early Dawn, Blizzard, Oatmeal, Cocoa, Chocolate Bar, Smoked Paprika and Cinnamon (only need a 5" square of each or a couple 5" for the tans on those).

Beach Party uses the same colors on vertical bars but background is 198 Brook with borders of Aqua 212 and Turquoise 101.

These last ones use THATCHED for the bars but bring in Emily Van Hoff's GROOVE print 42372 27 Unspooled Tuxedo. I love this print! Mix it with rainbow bars of crayola color fun or a more limited palette of berry, warm neutrals and browns and soft Lime and Greenery. There is so much motion in Groove print that I wanted to keep my smallest rectangle accents more subtle.

And here I have extended the background color to the outer borders to really frame the Groove and warm neutral palette more. I think this is the version I will be making in July! I just can't decide between the Buttermilk background or Soft Black or Charcoal background. I've ordered my fabric so I'll audition the final fabrics when it arrives. My bars use Charcoal, Toast, Oatmeal, Cocoa, Stone, Peach, Berry, Sugar Rose and Pink Grapefruit.

Enjoy a little Bar Hop fun, whether it is with a big mix of color and prints or with a calm and refined palette. Next month I'll be exploring Tokyo Terrace in my COLOR PLAY for quilts.

We'd love it if you sew and share in our facebook group "Robin Pickens Sew Happy Community". You can find the pattern at RobinPickensINC.com in print or PDF format. The specs below are what you need if making the original palette or one that follows a charm pack/panels/border format. If you have questions on the others, you can email at [email protected] to ask or to see if we have specific fabrics you may be looking for. 

Happy sewing!
​Robin