Originally Posted by Jennie
This is the 2nd time somebody mentioned the color dots on the salvedge. Can some one explain how you use them to match colors. Thanks
The colored dots on the selvege edge are actually all the colors that were used in printing that fabric. So a multi-colored print could have an orange red, a teal blue, black, lemon yellow, lime green, etc. This will help you with the shade of color to look for. (For example an wine red probably wouldn't look good with your orange red, unless you are making an all red quilt.)
Take the main bolt of fabric and compare those dots with some tone on tone fabrics and/or different size prints to draw your colors from. If you have a large scale design for the multi-color fabric I usually try to pick a mixture of small and medium sized print and maybe a tone on tone or solid-looking fabric.
Stack these bolts of fabric on top of each other so that you see the smallest area (the thickness of the bolt) and take a few steps back then look at your fabric. Do they look good together? Sometimes I rearrange the stack because some fabrics look better next to each other than another one in the same stack would.
If this still isn't clear send me a PM as I am afraid this response is probably longer than most folks wanted to read anyway.
Don't give up!
Peggy