Hello Quilters!
Monday I was on the American Patchwork and Quilting Podcast hosted by Pat Sloan and she asked me about how I choose colors for scrappy quilts! We didn’t have a lot of time so I wanted to share some tips on my process here!
Before we get into color choices let’s get ORGANIZED!
Organize your stash! ~ How will you know what you have unless you organize your fabric? My stash is organized by color. Believe it or not, I only have one shoe box size bin for each color (ok maybe two of a couple colors). I have one large tote of large pieces (yardage) for quilt backs or background fabric and one medium tote of low volume (white or very light color) fabric. When I need a color or am looking for a particular fabric, I know right where to go!
Make yourself a design board! ~ This doesn’t have to be fancy. I have two. One large one on the wall that typically has a couple projects on it. I also have a small poster size board that I pull out when I need a little extra room, or I’m going to a getaway and want one that’s easy to transport. Each are made of insulation or foam board that’s just wrapped with cotton batting and then taped to the back. They allow me to step back and look at my work from a distance. This is important; and when you have one, you won’t know what you did without it!
Lets get to it!
FIND A STARTING POINT – Ask yourself some questions… What is my Quilt about? What is the mood? Who is it for? Is there a color scheme I want to mimic? As a quilter I tend to make quilts for people ~ Maybe it’s a baby gift (soft palate of pinks? blues?) Maybe it’s a Christmas quilt (red? green?) Or I might want to match a room and something in the decor is going to dictate my color scheme… these are all things that I like to think about when I start a quilt, and they give me a starting point or a theme.
Since we are talking about scrappy quilts I automatically think about shopping in my stash first to see what I have! Once I have a starting point (theme), I think about what I’m looking for in my stash:
The Maine Idea ~ find a VARIETY of pattern, color and value.
Within this variety I’d ultimately like these six elements:
Large Print
Medium Print
Small Print
Geometric – Checks/Stripes/Plaid/Linear Element
Dots & Spots
Organic or Floral
My STARTING POINT is going to be a Happy (Scrap) Quilt! I want something that Makes me Happy – and I want lots of Variety!
Sometimes when choosing fabric, we go for lovely bundle ~ already pre-selected for us! This is wonderful, BUT when you are selecting your bundle keep The Main Idea in mind! Let’s look at some bundles I found in my own stash and I’ll show you what I mean!
First up is this gorgeous bundle!
Oh, isn’t this just dreamy! (Sleeping Porch by Heather Ross) Let’s open it up and see what’s really in here…
Looking at the photo above, I’ve organized it by value and I can already see VARIETY in Color (YES!) Print (YES!) and Value (YES! we will talk more about value in a minute) What about my six elements?
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Large Print? YES!
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Small Print YES!
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Medium Print YES!
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Geometric? NOPE
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Dot/Spot? YES (the top floral print acts as a spot)
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Floral? YES, YES AND YES!
This bundle is a great option for a scrappy quilt!
Now let’s look at this jelly roll ~ Equally gorgeous… Purples, Blues, Greens, Orange and Red. Lot’s of color!
Now I’m going to open it up and take a closer look…
Is there VARIETY in Value? (Nope!) Color? (YES!) Print (Nope! not enough variety for my scrappy quilt)
What about my six elements?
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Small? YES!
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Medium? YES!
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Large? NO!
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Geometric? YES YES!
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Spots? YES!
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Organic Floral? NO!
Wow what an interesting article. My style and fabric likes are so similar. Thanks for the food for thought.
i wish you could come visit and organize my “stash”. I can see a re-organization happening in my sewing room. thanks for the information. It might be time to make another Scrap Happy quilt. That was the quilt that made me fall in love with your designs. Thank you so much for sharing with us.
This is a wonderful article. I love color and this gives me a lot to think about when choosing fabrics.
Thank you for putting into words the very process I use to choose fabrics for a quilt. Now I understand my intuition.
I enjoyed listening to your Podcast and I’m glad to see the follow up tutorial! I always love your bright projects – your stash is amazing!
Thank you so much for patiently explaining some of my most difficult problems with fabric. I love brights and I love scrappy; however, afraid of scrappy!
Your article was so helpful. Thank you for sharing.