Yes, the gold squares were just laid down in this photo. I tried laying out green, and looked even more christmassy, so i sewed in navy squares where the gold ones are. I am very curious about the tea dying idea though, would love to know more about it. Maybe i will google and get some ideas too. All your ideas are sooo helpful!

I did some googling on tea dying. It says that if i press the fabric with a hot iron after, that will set the dye. So this maybe looks like a great idea, i think i will try some tea dying on some scrap fabrics, and see what i think of it :)
Here are two quilts i just found online, one is tea dyed, the other is not, and i think it looks good, and i think you're right Yvonne, it wouldn't effect my darker colours, i will def try this with some scraps later

Like Yvonne, I need to put out a disclaimer - I'm not a expert.LOL

But, my first thought was to tea dye the quilt top. I'm currently working on a star swap and the idea is to have it look antique/old. Some have tea dyed all the fabric.
I dyed some muslin the other day and would like to share something I learned. I should have thought of this beforehand, but.........
I used hard water to brew the tea and you know how a film forms on top? Well, that left dark marks on the fabric. I will get this floating in my teacup too if I don't use the softened water. Next time I will use soft water to avoid this. Just my thoughts........

BTW, you do beautiful work. I really like the star blocks.

My first thought was--tea dye. I have done several things with tea dying and have been very pleased with the result. If you iron it the color last.

Wow, im so happy with all the advice, and yes, i have soft water where i am, so that will be safe.

I think tea dying would be an excellent choice. I don't think it looks Christmassy but I do think it is too white for me. I've never tried tea dying but let it dry and iron it and it will last for years. You have a beautiful quilt and know they will love it.

It is a lovely quilt! Have you thought about quilting the white areas with contrasting/complimentary thread? I think that would solve your problem without making it look like you've added something else to solve a problem. I speak from experience.......just yesterday I had a quilt returned to me...one that I hated when I sent it to the quilter. It had too large of a contrast in color in several areas of the quilt. The quilter made that quilt into a gorgeous work of art by using contrasting/complimentary thread in the large 'ugly' areas. I wish you could see my quilt now!!