Let’s have a chat about color and patterns and how we can use them to make color pleasing quilts 😃. There are a few things to look at… the print on the fabric, the colors in the print, and the patterns of the prints. Of course, we can’t forget to mention the Color Wheel 😅. Plus, read to the end where I share a way to beat the stress of color picking 🤩.
Look at Colors
What colors are you aiming for—calm and relaxing, neutral for matching any décor, bright and cheerful, cool or warm colored, earthy, monotone (single color in different tints and shades), the list goes on and on 😅. Your colors may be dictated by the project you’re working on… Halloween will typically be orange, purple, gray/black and sometimes green; Americana will be reds, whites/creams, and blues; baby quilts tend to lean toward pastels (although I lean a bit differently… more toward texture than color like this TEXTURE BLOG POST); or specific colors for a wedding gift. Once you have your project figured out your colors may come easily.
If you’re quilting just to quilt with no specific purpose… say you liked a quilt pattern and want to make your own version picking your colors should bring you joy. Or the quilt pattern may suggest some colors to you—alright that might be a bit woo-woo for some of you, but really, I’ve had quilt patterns inspire color choices and I’ve had fabric inspire the quilt pattern.
Colors Have Value
Another thing to consider when choosing color is their “value”, how light or dark are they. If you do a picture search of quilts, you’ll see lots and lots of variety, but you’ll find the ones that attract you the most are ones with values ranging from dark to light—the differing values should help your eye move over the whole quilt and not stop in one place. Quilts that are of one or two values will less likely attract your attention as they seem so bland.
Value ranges from light to dark and all that’s in between: light, medium light, medium, medium dark, and dark. Whites, creams, and yellows “read” as lights typically and reds, blues, purples will read as darks. Of course, the fabric print may adjust the “read” up or down a level depending upon its colors and the size of the print, but at least you get the idea.
Using the Color Wheel
The color wheel can be a helpful or inspirational tool to pull out when you’re feeling stuck. I’ve had to use mine a few times and so I keep it handy—mine is hanging with my rulers. Sometimes it’s nice to have some direction when adding additional colors; it reminds me of other colors out there to use or more specifically ones that go well together.
Working from kindergarten up 😁 we have the Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, and Blue.
These, of course, can get mixed together to make our secondary colors: Orange, Green, and Purple.
Then, mixing a primary color with a neighboring secondary color will make the intermediate colors: Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Purple, and Red-Purple. Of course, these have different names, like teal, turquoise, violet, magenta, etc. though. 😊
Now that we have our three categories of colors down, there are different ways to play with them 😃.
Analogous colors are three to four colors all next to each other on the color wheel—think blue, blue-green, green, and yellow-green.
Complimentary colors are two colors opposite each other on the color wheel—blue and orange, or yellow and purple (did you ever wonder why sports teams’ chose the colors they did?? 🤔).
Split Complimentary Colors are colors on the color wheel similar to the complimentary, but instead of a straight across they form more of a peace sign. With a primary and the two intermediates opposite or secondary across from another secondary and primary. Check out the middle, vertical row in the graphic above OR bottom right graphic below.
I love having a color wheel handy for coming up with additional colors to use in a quilt… I may have one or two colors chosen, but adding in a third is always a great option. In home décor design there’s a rule for a balanced look: 60 – 30 – 10… 60% of your main color, 30% of a second color, and just enough (10%) to pop of the third color. So, I prefer to have at least three colors to my quilt unless it’s a purposeful one- or two-color quilt.
Another way to play with color is to use tints (adding white) and shades (adding black)… bring on the monochrome (one color, fading from dark to light). Ombré is slightly different as it’s two colors fading into each other but would still be another option to play with in your quilts 😃.
Here you can see the original color is the outer layer. The 2nd ring has white added to it (tint). The inner two rings have been shaded with gray (3rd ring) and black (innermost ring) added to them.
One of the biggest things I can tell you is that if you’re struggling with the colors to choose, lay the pattern out where you can see it… hang it on a cork board or hook, tape it to a cupboard door, or lay it out on your sewing table… but put it out where you can see it. Inspiration will strike and you’ll have a good idea of what direction you want to go, 😃 so sleep on it for a night or two 😉.
A Look at Patterns
Once you’ve decided colors, what patterns do you feel like mixing—florals, stripes, polka dots, civil war, retro, tone on tone, plaids, solids, big or small prints, mixing prints like stripes and polka dots, or scrapy with a bit of everything… There’s a lot of choices, can you tell?? 😅 What is your style?
If you’re making a quilt, it might as well bring you joy in the creation of it, right 😁? I know for me, I would highly object to making a quilt all dark and full of skulls (unless Halloween themed 💀… it would make the whole process a struggle for me and really end up slowing it down, so as much as possible let the fabric and pattern bring you Joy!
The Fabric Pull and Auditioning
The biggest thing here is to grab all the colors and fabrics you may want (don’t worry about the fabric prints yet) and lay them together in a fan or a way you can see more than just a little bit of the color—this is a “fabric pull”. I keep like colors together, so all the pinks are together and the purples together, etc.
Figure out how many of those prints you need for your pattern. Then pick your favorites or remove the obvious “no’s”—the prints that don’t really play nice with your favorites or it’s a warm tone when you grabbed mostly cool tones. Laying one or two prints next to a favorite is called a “auditioning” and helps the paring down process to get you to from the number of fabrics you originally chose to what you actually need.
You can even audition fabric on the bolt in store! With bolts you’ll lay them out semi-stacked so you can see more than just the edge. Make sure you have good lighting, so you can see the colors well, and if you’ve brought fabric from home to match, make sure you lay that out as well—nothing is worse than getting a bunch of yardage home and finding out the colors don’t play nice together 😫.
Though these aren't bolts of fabric you can get the gist of how to lay the bolts out. You can also make them a looser "stack" and allow them to lay on a table/counter horizontally, so you can see the fabric a bit more and get more color variation in view.
Lines of Fabric
There is no need to stress about colors and tones and prints when you use a line of fabric 🥳. In my beginning quilting classes I talk about “lines of fabric”. A line (of fabric) is where one designer will produce a bunch of patterns to be printed on fabric in various colors. Sometimes the designer will only create a dozen or so colors/patterns, other times they will create up to 42 different colors and/or patterns for a line of fabric.
The wonderful thing about a line of fabric is much of the stress of color and pattern choosing is done for you! You only need to worry about which colors to choose for your pattern. If you’re pattern is precut friendly, then even better because you get 1-3 of each print making your job even easier 😃.
All in all… PLAY with color and patterns. See what strikes your fancy and makes you happy. There are a zillion combinations out there, so relax, have fun, and explore all the possibilities. If you find the fabric didn’t work as well as you wanted share the quilt with someone who does love it, or donate it to a worthy cause.
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Warmth & Love,
💜 Tracy
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