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Matching fabrics is as easy as 1, 2, 3!
By Serena Nabeta | October 15, 2008
You have found the perfect quilt pattern for your next project! The prints and colors chosen for the quilt in the pattern are perfect. You love the way the colors blend together and sparkle with each other. How simple it would be if you could find the exact same fabrics used in the pattern photo. So off to the fabric store you go, determined to find those exact fabric pieces!
But alas, that is not to be! After searching high and low, you finally admit to yourself that you are going to have to be brave and select your own fabrics. Yikes!!! Doesn’t that just scare you down to your toes?!?! What if this doesn’t blend with that? What if the blue in this print clashes with the blue in that print? Do all my fabrics have to be the same color or all prints? There’s so many choices; I don’t know what to do!
Never fear; it’s not nearly as difficult as you have imagined it to be!
Start by allowing yourself some time to look at fabrics and consider your choices. Don’t say to yourself I should be able to pick out my fabrics in 15 minutes, because it will take longer than that. The more fabric choosing you do, that faster you will be able to say at a glance, “That’s perfect!” But for now, allow yourself time to browse and consider all possibilities.
Choose your dominate piece of fabric that has the colors in it you want first of all. Look at the colors in that print and decide what colors you want to bring out. Lay out your dominate print and begin pulling other fabrics in various colors to lay with it to see what it looks like. You may have a color scheme in mind when you see the print, but when you start putting those colors with it, it may not turn out to look like what you are thinking.
If you are wanting to keep a dominate color theme, pick various shades of the same color that blend with the dominate print. You may still need to bring in another color to accent the others and create some variety in the quilt, but you can still stick to that color. Or bring in multiple colors into the quilt from the dominate fabric. Create variety with solids, marbles, small prints and stripes.
Keep in mind that picking out fabrics for a project is not something you learn overnight. The more you do it, the easier it will become. Remember that the first time you pick out your own colors of fabric, what you pick out may not be perfect. But the more you do it, the easier it will get.
Just think back to the first 1/4″ seam you stitched or the first block you created. And then think of what you can do now! The more you do it, the easier and quicker it gets! And the best thing of all is that there is no wrong choice, just many different ones!
Have fun picking out fabrics for your next project!
Topics: Fabric Tips, Helpful Lessons | Comments Off
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