That 70's quilt

My aunt is moving from Florida to Portland, OR.  As she is driving across country she stopped to spend a day with us.  We are a bit out of the way, but who knows when she'd have a chance to visit again.  Since she bought a new house in Portland, I decided that she needed a house warming quilt.  I wish I had thought of this a month ago, so I could have spent some more time, but it only occurred to me a few days before she arrived.  I called my cousin, her daughter to get some color ideas.  My cousin said her mom has been wearing a lot of dark coral lately, likes turquoise and bought some 1970's Danish modern furniture for the new house.  I shuddered a little, the house I grew up in was furnished almost entirely from Scan Furniture, all Danish modern.  Then I set to work!

I worked so quickly that I didn't take any progress pictures.  I had gone to my LQS and found lots of yummy things, but nothing dark coral.  I finally ended up with a jelly roll that had some aqua, salmon and a cream with a pale yellow cast.  It was the best I could do and I was running out of time, it was Thursday and my aunt would arrive Sunday.  I got home and opened up the jelly roll, only to find that it was all 1930's inspired baby prints.  Ack!!  It's lovely fabric, but 1930's baby would NOT work with Danish Modern.

I started looking through my stash, hoping for inspiration to strike.  I uncovered a cream print with large birds and flowers and realized the flowers were coral.  Then I found a paisley with a dark coral back ground, a turquoise and mustard stripe, a dark brown with the same turquoise and mustard.  I pulled a few more coordinates and came up with this.

 I'll be honest.  With the exception of the cream flower and bird print and the dark brown at the top, I bought all these fabrics online.  Without exception, when they arrived, I thought, "that isn't what I thought it was going to be, man is it UGLY."  I had a moment of regret about wasting money on such an ugly fabric and consigned it to the stash, hoping that it would disappear and I would never have to look at it again.

 Somehow all those ugly fabrics came together and made something awesome!

 Even the back was an ugly fabric.  It was a muddy brown paisley I bought early in my quilting life because it was double wide.  I pieced it to use up some leftovers from the front.

You just never know when those ugly fabrics will come together in harmony and make something beautiful.  I would never have thought that I would make a project that contained that turquoise and mustard stripe, the brown dot and the coral paisley.  I usually work with tonal fabrics, fabrics that only have one dominate color, but sometimes a good loud print with a bunch of colors in it really pulls the quilt together, like the cream flower and bird fabric.

Since this is a 100% stash project, I'm linking up to Clover and Violet.