Woven Heart Quilt Block

Selecting fabrics for your quilts can be a difficult task if you are not comfortable choosing color schemes.

While some people do have a natural instinct for selecting perfect colors, others don’t.  The good news is that color-choosing skills can be developed with a little knowledge and practice… and a color wheel.

To make it really simple, start with a quilt using a monochromatic color scheme.  Choose a color you like, and then combine fabrics that are light, medium and dark.  For example, if your color scheme is red, you can select fabrics that range from pink to a dark red to include in your quilt.

Once you have your fabrics chosen, pay attention to the value as you decide where to place the fabrics in your quilt.  If you are making an Ohio Star quilt block, you could place the light pink in the center square and the dark red as the points in the star surrounding the center.  Fill in the remaining pieces in the block in medium pink.

Another type of color selection for a quilt is a polychromatic color scheme. This quilt uses many different colors.  Most crazy quilts and many scrap quilts are polychromatic, although either of these types of quilts can easily have a more limited color selection.

If you are making a quilt that has a complementary color scheme or an analogous color scheme, it could be helpful to have a color wheel.  Complementary colors are those that are across the color wheel from each other, while analogous colors sit next to each other on the wheel.

Friendship Quilt Block

Sometimes even using a color wheel can be frustrating.  It wasn’t until I took a class in fabric dying that I understood why not all greens looked good together; or why some purples seemed to clash with each other.

It turns out that because green is a combination of yellow and blue, how much of each is used to make the green will affect the actual color of green.  If there is more yellow, you will get a yellow-green; and those don’t mix too well with the blue-greens.

This is one place where a color wheel can help a lot.  By placing the wheel next to your fabric, you can see whether the fabric is tending to the yellow or to the blue.  By sticking with one or the other, you will probably be happier with your final quilt.

If you are completely stuck with colors, a quick trip to a paint store to get a collection of paint chips may help.  Often paint stores have color chips with multiple, coordinating colors.  Taking one or more of these along on your fabric shopping trip may make the selection of your fabric much easier.

Color value, as well as the size of the print in your fabric, may make a difference in how your fabrics go together for your quilt.

For additional tips and techniques for choosing fabric for your quilts, visit:

http://www.how-to-quilt.com/articles/1508-choose-fabric-colors.php

Happy Quilting!

Penny