Irish Chain Question
 

I want to make a "somewhat" scrappy Irish Chain using French fabrics. I have four color ways: red, yellow, blue, and green. I am going to use a white on cream tonal for the contrast. The only problem is can I use all four colors or do I have to limit it to three for a triple Irish Chain. So confused...

Do you have an Irish Chain book? They have a lot of varieties and you can change colors around any way you want. Since I do not have much of an imagination with color I would need to sketch it out with graph paper. If you do a search on there internet you will find a lot of quilts with different colors.

The double irish chain I made, one of my first quilts, used something like 12 or 16 different fabrics for the chains. It called for doing strip sets then slocing then down. You can mix and match any way from there.

Lots of choices from Google Images. Even Jenny of MSCQ has a scrappy single Irish Chain.
https://www.google.com/search?q=scra...w=1015&bih=606

You might use 2 colors for all the chains going left to right and the other 2 colors for all the chains going right to left. This would be for a double chain. Another suggestions is add one more color and do a triple chain using say the yellow for the center chain, add 2 of the colors for all chains going left to right and the other 2 colors for chains going right to left.

Irish Chain is on my bucket list for this year.

Just an opinion but... Triple Irish Chain is a complex yet simple pattern that screams for simple color choices. It's regal when done with one or two similar colors for the chains on a cream or white background. It gets very busy looking when you add more colors in.

So depends on what you want the end result to look like. I like mine in a white with dark blue for the outer chains and a silver blue for the inner one. Nicest quilt I have ever made.

tim in san jose

Using your 4 color choices, leave off the background white and choice one of the 4 colors for the background.

My second quilt was a single Irish Chain and I used 3 different fabrics plus the background and it was beautiful. Now I am making a triple Irish Chain and there must be about 25 different fabrics in it so far. I would definitely use as many colors as you want.

I know Bonnie Hunter would use many colors and it would be beautiful. I finished her happily scrappy Irish chain quilt, some of my fabrics were butt ugly, but I stayed with similar values and the quilt is one of my best. I have become a scrappy fan.