Color Terms and Combining Fabrics

The posts of the last two weeks were all about scrap quilting. Since I received some questions on color prints, choosing fabrics, and combining fabrics, I decided to write a post on color and combining fabrics in quilts. This will come in handy if you are making a “planned” scrap quilt, like I demonstrated last week. So let’s talk color!

Color Basics – Creating Contrast

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, shade, etc. 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:

To understand color better, here is explanations for those terms above and more. The most basic is hue. That is the base color. Blue, yellow, green, etc. are color hues. Value is the lightness or darkness of a hue. Here are three terms to know when referring to value:

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

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.

Color Basics – The Color Wheel

Understanding the color wheel will also help you in choosing fabrics. Here’s mine:

The easiest thing to remember is the primary colors: 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.

Here’s an example with fabrics:

The stack on the left is made up of fabrics that are complementary and the stack on the right is made up of fabrics that are analogous. Blocks from the stack on the left will be more vibrant than from those on the right.

Here’s another example:

Starting with the fabrics on the left. I used all colors that were analogous. The stack in the center shows how I created a bit of contrast by adding a tinted blue and green in place of the ones in the first stack. Finally, I took out two of the analogous colors and replaced them with complementary and warm fabrics of red and yellow, to create even more contrast.

Combining Fabrics

Tip#1: Background fabrics. The background can play a role in the contrast in your quilt. When choosing a background fabric, consider print size as well as how it will play with your color prints.

 I wanted the design of this quilt on the left (below) to be very subtle and the colors very subdued. Less contrast between the color prints and background. The quilt on the right is a similar pattern with high contrast between the color prints and the lighter background.

Here is an example of how fabric color, a block design, or an appliqué pattern is intensified by simply changing the background fabric from light tan to black.

Tip #2: Prints. Let’s look at some of the blocks from my Scrappy North Stars quilt to see how prints can be mixed and matched for different effects. Here’s the quilt:

Here are two blocks from the quilt:

For the block on the left, I used fabrics with prints about the same size in the block pieces, including the background. For the block on the right, not only did I use a lighter background fabric, I also alternated in print size depending on where the pieces fell in the block. 

Next up is my quilt, Sister’s Reunion:

Here are two blocks from this quilt:

The fabrics in the block on the left both have a larger, busier print than the fabrics in the block on the right. See what a difference prints in fabrics can make? I think the star design in the block on the right stands out more because of the difference.

 I hope you enjoyed this explanation of some color basics and that it will help you on your next fabric shopping trip. Whether you want high or low contrast, you can play with the colors, fabric prints, and background fabrics to achieve the desired look.

Feel free to comment or ask any questions in the comment section below.

Happy Quilting!
Deanne