I just want to curl up right there with a book and a cup of tea. 
I recently completed my Plain Spoken quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop book. I’m calling this quilt “The Real McCoy” because it was inspired by our collection of McCoy pottery. I made the napping quilt, which was supposed to be a finished size of 51 x 77 inches. My finished measurements are 47.5 x 74 inches. I had no problems with the seams matching up and prewashed all the fabric, so I’m not entirely sure how I how managed to lose about 3 inches in all directions (which is a lot!), but oh well. I LOVE IT!!!
Here are some close ups of the front and the solid back. I used the same free motion pattern that they used in the book and it was actually really fun to do. I’ll definitely be doing that one again. As I quilted I realized that it worked better to try to keep everything an even width, but this was sometimes hard to do. Also, I do much better stitching in the “normal” direction, with the fabric moving away from me. Once I start pulling it toward me I have a hard time seeing behind the machine and not running into the stitching that is already there. So I slow down and the stitch length decreases significantly. Something to work on in the future. If they would just make sewing machines you could see through it would be much easier!! (Check this post for info on my quilting set up while working on this quilt and a video tip on managing quilt bulk!)
I used a total of 13 different fabrics for the front of this quilt. For this size, it meant 10 pieces of each of the two sizes or rectangle from each of the fabrics, and then 4 other pieces. The book does a really nice job of showing what variations in the color scheme can look like, and also how it changes when you add more fabrics. The first step calls for piecing together small and large rectangles randomly, however, I found that 13 colors was not enough to do this randomly and still ensure that I wasn’t repeating combinations frequently. So, I carefully planned which ones to sew together. I also carefully selected which pairs would go in each row, and tried to keep like colors away from each other. Then I did the best I could with the arrangement of the rows for the completed top.
I would suggest that if you want to do this randomly and still not have a lot of repetition or instances where the same color is next to itself, you should start with at least 2 dozen colors. I like the look of the 13 colors I have here, but I think it would have gone a bit faster with more.
And here it is with the McCoy pots that inspired it. This was a very satisfying project to do and I highly recommend it. The possibilities really are endless here!
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Love it! Really beautiful and wonderfully showcases the colors.
Gorgeous quilt, Amy! Your colors are wonderful, the quilting is amazing and it looks so perfect with your McCoy pots!
I love the colors in this quilt. It really reflects the colors in your pottery. I always admire the photo of your pottery when I visit your blog. Well done!
Beautiful, especially the photo of it hanging next to the McCoy pottery. The name makes me smile — when I was 5 or 6, my absolute favorite show on TV was “The Real McCoy’s” — an old sitcom in black and white.
Oh, it is beautiful! I love the quilting– it is fabulous! (Could that have maybe contributed to 3″ of shrinkage? It looks pretty dense.) And the quilt looks just perfect with your pottery collection.
I also love it next to your pottery display! It’s lovely.
I love your new quilt, especially the machine quilting! I also love the colors and the randomness, which I’m not very good at.
I love it all.
So beautiful! Love the solids you selected – great colors!
This is gorgeous! I love the photo of the quilt with your cabinet and dishes! You are really cranking through your crafting to do list.
it’s beautiful, amy!
It’s stunning! Great colour choices.
I just found you through sew mamas sew…I love this quilt, especially the colors and the quilting.
gorgeous. I LOVE the colors. So nice.
i just found this from flickr–it’s absolutely gorgeous and the best color combo i’ve seen of the plain spoken quilt! very inspiring!
Wow! I LOVE this quilt! Beautiful!
I collect McCoy pottery also and I love how you incorporated these colors into your quilt. I am inspired to try this one day for myself! Thanks for sharing.
I absolutely love the colors in this quilt, which makes sense, because I also collect McCoy. It’s inspired me to make one of my own. Thanks for sharing your beautiful work.