zozee

Since you are the brand new to quilting and want help with color choice, I recommend choosing 3-4 fabrics for a simple pattern like rail fence or pinwheels.
1. Focus fabric you really like
2. A dark color from it.
3. A light color from it.
4. Optional binding color that's different .

when we say color, it doesn't mean solid, but how it 'reads. When you first see a fabric, what color do you see it as ? It might have tan and blue specks but read blue. Pink and green plaid but reads pink, etc. (squint if you can't decide).
decide.

Good luck. It gets easier with practice.

thimblebug6000

Jan your photo is so wonderful.... I went and looked back at our photos from Puntarenes, Costa Rica and so many of them are similar to your wonderful photo that you used as an inspiration for your colours.

Nammie to 7

Learning how to make good color choices is often the hardest part of quilting for me. I like to watch what other people buy and will often ask why they chose that piece of fabric. It is also fun to go to a quilt shop, pick out a fun piece of fabric and then figure out what other fabrics I would put with it. You don't have to buy anything -- it's just getting a lesson in what works and what doesn't work. I've gotten better at choosing fabric and it is now one of my favorite things to do.

Dolphyngyrl

Honestly, most of the time I usually keep within the same line unless I have a huge selection to choose from, if then it could take me hours. I think I spent 3 hours in a shop choosing my bargello colors in batiks

Aurora

I find that if I buy what I like it will go together maybe not today, but I find I am doing more shopping from my stash which means I can buy more fabric for my stash.

Edie

I pick out light, medium and dark. And then I go from there! If I make a sampler I make sure I have the three colors in each block, even though the blocks may not even match the other blocks. Light Medium and Dark. If I am going with a full pattern I use light medium and dark and pick out the colors that I want to make for myself or the person. If I have a piece of light fabric, patterned, I will pick a dark color from that - like light blue, I will use a dark blue for my dark. Solid is usually medium because I just don't like to mix up patterns that much. unless it is a Floating Star or something. Then I go by light, Medium and Dark whatever. People have complimented me (I am not bragging here) on the way I put colors together, so I just think to myself......."If you like it, someone else will like it also -----if it ain't broke, don't fix it." So I have my own style and you could put a whole bunch of my quilts on the floor with a bunch of other ones and you know which ones are mine. Sounds sort of dull doesn't it? But I just go to Quilter's Cache, pick out a 12" block and I am off to the races. Whatever comes out comes out. And if I am happy, I guess that's the most important - My quilt my rules? Well, back to my quilt that I am working on right now. Exactly like I just explained. Have a great day. Edie

PS - we are getting some good cold weather now. Had rain and sleet yesterday and 135 car accidents in the Twin Cities - I stayed in the house, thank you very much, plan on doing same today. Will fix me a pizza and watch the thermometer drop!!!!!!

Jingle

If I am going to do a matchy, matchy quilt. I pick out a print and try to match colors in that piece. Pick out at least three and can pick out a different color from that print for inner border and sometimes I use the same pieces for a couple more borders.
Now I am making more scrappy quilts. You can do a controlled scrappy by trying to get them to all go together, colorwise. You could do just a bunch of fabrics you like, they don't necessarily have to match.
Look at lots of quilt pictures and you should get the idea. You could also try to pick a quilt picture you like and try to match the colors in it.
I try not to use too many solids. I stay away from lines, plaids, etc. too hard to cut them straight unless you use scissors for cutting. That is too slow for me.

Edie

I don't do lines, boxes, plaids, circles, whatever has a distinct line plan in the fabric. My mother could do it blindfolded....not me. I have seen some beautiful plaids, Uh Uh!!!!!! I am glad I am not the only one and if you thought you were, aren't you glad you're not? I do love to fussy cut though. I cut out some cardboard in different squares, drew my lines, cut the whatever it was I was fussy cutting and that generally went in the center of the block. I am just finishing up a quilt now where I bought fabric of 12 birds (American) and cut them to 4-1/2x4-1/2 and did it ever turn out nice. I am giving it to a lady who has given me two bird cages for my birds and she likes birds and I thought this was apropos. Have you ever made a grocery bag quilt? You have a light color and a dark color and a main color, which is a 4-1/2" square. Then you cut out a million 2-1/2" squares, You put the light color in one bag, the dark color in another bag, shake the heck out of them.......put a bag on either side of your sewing chair...Take the rectangle, and put a light color and a dark color on either end of the rectangle and sew it diagonally, cut off the edge of the square and rectangle that you sewed together and iron it down. Go to Quilter's Cache and look up Floating Stars - 12" block. Better directions than I can give, it is a fun quilt to make, easy, but lots of pieces, gets rid of a lot of xtra fabric. The 4-1/2" square is usually white,(I use white on white). It gives the quilt an optical illusion like the stars are floating. Take a look at it in Quilter's Cache. There are wonderful recipes/patterns (depending on your mood for the day). The patterns ALWAYS turn out.


Have a good day. Edie

Bubbie

Hi Tom. Welcome to the QB, you asked a great question (and it's the same one I had when I first started quilting). And now you're going to get a lot of different answers, from each of us (then you will get to try the ones that sound good to you, then when someone asks this question down the road your answer with be among the list too ).
I found that I would see all of these great colors, but I couldn't get them to work together because I had so many (I was picking up each color I liked and everything I liked, so I was all over the place). So I found a pattern (I used a simple rail fence pattern). I decided on one print fabric (this became my focus fabris and was a medium sized print, it was a bright green background with different colored dots that also had a black outline around each dot), this became my starting point. I went on to pick out four fabrics in soled colors (that went with some of the dots on my focus - for me just finding a focus fabric to start with was enough for on day, my mind was swimming), so I kept my fabric in a bag in my car so that the next time I went to town I could look for blenders).
This is how I start most of my quilts still, even if I don't have a pattern picked out. I be thinking of starting a new quilt, so I will pick out a focus print that I just like (I also have to feel I can cut it up). I will keep it and start to pick up blenders (other fabrics), to go with it (most of the time I will use more than one print in a quilt, but I will work with a theme in mind from my focus fabric). I spent two years picking up fabric with stars on it (I would get half yard cuts, if I liked the stars on the fabric), didn't know what pattern I would be using (and I ended up with a lot of stars). When I did make my quilt I did end up with a lot left over, but I was able to pick the colors out that I wanted to work with (then used the left overs on other quilts).
Good luck, and remember NO rules just FUN.

Mitty

I hold the fabrics next to each other and decide if I like how they look together. It's usually not too hard to find two or three that I like together, but then finding four, five, and six that all 'go' gets progressively more difficult. After six or so, I'd say the more different fabrics, the less they have to match, and it gets easier again.

How this translates into advice is that I would try to make a quilt that only requires three different fabrics, or I would try a scrappy quilt.

Tonals add some variety over solids and can be easier to match than prints. You might have one print fabric with several colors in it, and then buy tonal fabrics that match some of those colors. (A couple other people have already said similar, so I'm just agreeing that it works for me, too).

Don't be afraid to bring a piece of fabric to the store with you to match - for a while I carried around some particularly difficult fabrics with me in my coat pocket. I have one pretty blue fabric that does not match any other shade of blue known to human kind and will have to match it up with black, because black matches everything.