Spa palette

This is the palette for the new quilt I've started. It makes me think of a refreshing spa. It's to be a gift, and although it does need to be done in the next month or so, it has temporarily queue-jumped, because I felt the need to do some straightforward piecing for a while.

The palette is based on fabrics from the Fleur Nouveau range by Clothworks. I first picked up a few pieces of it at the Festival of Quilts nearly a year ago, and loved it. The design I came up with needed a more comprehensive gradation though, so I added to it from my stash. I've been wanting to use it for ages, and they seem the prefect colour for the intended recipient.

I started with close to 800, 1.5 x 4.5in strips, and at this stage they had been joined into almost 200, 4.5in quarter-blocks. Pressing all those seams did get a little tedious! While I had an eye to value balance, and tried to keep each quarter-block slightly different, I didn't actually plan where each piece would go, I just paired them up as I went. This is a slightly risky approach, because the final layout may not work quite as intended, but it's much faster! One day I'll get a big design wall, so I can lay them all out and still have space to sew - the thought of positioning 800 individual pieces of fabric on the floor wasn't pleasant; not only would it be uncomfortable placing them all, but, especially with polished floorboards and small visitors (canine and human) they'd slide around easily and get muddled anyway.

There's a little more work to do to get the quilt top into one piece, btu then I'll set it aside and get back to the higher priority quilts. Later, I'm going to add some fused applique to the top, before quilting. I'm planning to use a light solid over some of the darkest fabrics - does anyone have any tips on how to stop the colours showing through? The only thing I've thought of is first fusing the applique fabric onto a solid white.