Fabric Selection… Key words are Color and Value.
Find a “Focus Fabric” which is a fabric that you LOVE! The colors and design please you when you look at it. It sparks your creativity. You build your other fabric choices around this fabric. If this fabric is a print with different colors used in it then do what my mother does… “Find a bolt of fabric for each color used in it. Lay them out. Now find a tint lighter or a shade darker or tone of all the colors used in the fabric. Lay them out. You may like the colors that don’t match perfectly better. See if they add to your focus fabric.” Remember that the Value of the fabrics is relative to the other fabric values that surround it. That’s why the variation in tints, shades and tones may help your Focus Fabric look better. Take a Value finder with you if needed to make sure that there is a good variation in values you have chosen.
Many quilting stores and online fabric sellers have fabrics listed in Medleys or Collections. You may wish to purchase a Collection that you like. Take a good look at the fabrics to make sure there is a good variation in values from dark to light. You should purchase other fabrics to enhance the Medley if it does not vary the values.
If you have the time buy only ¼ yard of each fabric to start. Take them home, try them together…do a paste up and see how you like them as they play on each other.
Now that you have a good idea of the fabrics you want to use in the quilt remember this:
You want at least 5 fabrics to choose from as you put together your sampler blocks. Remember the texture of these fabrics should vary…not all small prints. If you choose to use fabric that is plaid or stripe buy extra fabric.
Background fabric. You want something that won’t detract from your other fabric choices. Remember the samples you saw in class. It needs to contrast enough from your fabric choices that your work will stand out and not blend into nearly nothing.
Sashing in-between the blocks sets them nicely apart in a sampler quilt. What fabric would you use for this? It can be one of your 5 but doesn’t have to be. It could be a 6th. The sashing looks nice if it is also the inside border.
Now an outside border. Remember that the sashing and borders create a FRAME around your blocks. What color of a frame would enhance the art inside it?
Batting, backing and binding are needed.
Purchase enough fabric that you don’t run out. I have posted your fabric needs already. Remember that fabrics go out of print and finding more at a later date may not be possible.
Value: Defines the light and dark aspects of color. This is used for establishing depth in
a quilt.
Value finder: Look at the fabrics through a red plastic piece or copy the fabrics in black and white next to each other.
Relativity: The value of a color is relative to the colors around it. Colors change as soon as they are placed with other colors.
Mood: Colors can alter mood.
Visual texture: The print on the fabrics. These should be varied throughout the quilt.
YOU WANT GOOD QUALITY COTTON OR COTTON BLEND FABRIC
If you are going to spend hours working on a quilt you want it to last and not fall apart.
