Before You Choose Fabrics

In last week’s post, we talked about prints and how to mix and match them in quilt blocks and quilt backgrounds. Now that we know about prints, it’s time to consider the basics of color theory to actually get ready to pick fabric colors. Next week, I’ll share fabric shopping tips, whether shopping your stash at home or the one at the quilt shop. Let’s get started.

Color Basics – Contrast and Color

One of the basic things you want to think about along with color is the contrast between fabrics you choose. Color and contrast actually go hand in hand. If you want your block designs to boldly stand out, you want fabrics that highly contrast with each other. If you want your quilt to read quieter, chose fabrics that have less contrast with each other.

Contrast is achieved by considering the value (tint or shade) of the each color you choose. For example, pink is a tint of red where maroon is a shade of red. This photo below shows that:

Knowing the difference between shade, tone and tint and how that effects the contrast between your fabrics can go a long way in helping you choose fabrics.

• Shade is taking the pure color, for instance blue, and adding black to it to make it darker, for a dark blue.
• Tint is taking the pure blue and adding white to make it lighter, making a light blue.
• Tone is adding grey to a pure color to make it less intense. Most colors around us in the world are tones of pure color.

Here’s an example of auditioning fabrics for contrast. This first stack of fabrics below has pieces very close in shade so there is hardly any contrast:

Use that selection above for a “quiet”quilt. Now look what happens when I replace two of the fabrics with colors that are a lighter (tinted) version of the same color it replaced:

See the change? This will make elements of your quilt pattern more enhanced so it will stand out. So far I have used all “cool” colors. Look what happens when I remove two of those fabrics and replace them with fabrics that fall into the “warm” category:

If you hear a quilter talk about “chroma” or “intensity” they are referring to the purity of a color, or how close it is to the pure hue. Here’s an example:

The blue fabric on the left is closest to the true hue whereas the blue fabric on the right is a shade of the true hue (black added). So, the intensity or chroma is higher in the fabric on the left. That fabric will be more noticeable in a quilt than the one on the right. 

So now you can see that creating contrast is simply using the different values (shade, tint or tone) of a hue to create contrast.

Two other important terms are: warm colors and cool colors. Cool colors are generally the purples, blues and greens where warm colors are generally oranges, reds and yellows. Mixing warm and cool colors is another way to create contrast.

An easy way to remember the colors that play together in different ways and when they are “cool” or “warm” is to refer to that handy little color wheel.

Let’s review what I’m sure you learned about colors in grade school. Primary colors are: yellow, red, and blue. These are the three basic colors that can be combined to make the other colors shown on the wheel above.

Secondary colors are those that are made by combining two primary colors equally. For example, yellow and red make orange.

Finally, tertiary or intermediate colors are made by combining a primary and a secondary color. For example, combine red and orange to make a red/orange color.

The color wheel comes in handy when you are interested in creating contrast as well. Colors located across from each other on the wheel have high contrast. That’s referred to as complementary. Using those in a quilt will create a design that is vibrant because of the contrast. Colors near each other on the wheel are considered analogous colors and will have less contrast. The quilt made from these will be “quieter”. Although you can create a little contrast by mixing in hues of different shades, tints and tones.

Look at my fabric examples above and try to identify where they fall on the wheel.

Alternate Ways to Achieve Contrast

I am mainly a scrap quilter and I love to use a lot of different color fabrics of all types of prints in my quilts. Scraps quilts are a riot of crazy contrasts so how do I achieve an interesting a design element that ties the quilt together?

Here’s how I do it:

I add a uniform color into the scrap quilt, usually within the blocks. This element serves to tie the blocks together, making the quilt look less chaotic. Here’s two of my quilt patterns below that do that, Kaleidoscope and Sun Catcher:

I added black elements to the churn dash/log cabin blocks in Kaleidoscope to create a contrasting crisscross design across the quilt. For Sun Catcher I framed the colorful stars in the blocks with a black design element that creates a “diamond” shape. Then with a black square in the sashing between blocks, the blocks appear connected like a chain.

Another way to create really good contrast and make your color prints stand out is to use black fabric for the background. I did this with the rectangular runner in the Spinning Spools pattern:

Finally, alternate between cool and warm color blocks in a quilt top like I did in my quilt, Stars Ablaze:

That’s it. Join me next week for a deeper dive into choosing color. Comment below or ask a question and I will enter you in a drawing for my pattern, Stars Ablaze.

The drawing will be on Monday, October 13th. ***We have a winner! Congrats, Catherine Dorsey!***

Happy Quilting!
Deanne