DonnaC

Thank you all! I really appreciate the input. To be honest, I'm not in love with these fabrics either, I was just trying to "make it work" as Tim Gunn says because they are a coordinated set. I'm going to deep dive into my FQ collection and come up with something better!

Sandygirl

"Modern" fabric designers do not design collections, piece-quilt in the traditional sense. Yes...they hodge podge ...
sandy

rryder

Don't be afraid to use yardage other than FQ, you don't have to stick with FQ just because that's what is called for in the pattern.

Rob

mkc

That's what I do - take a photo of the fabrics then change it to black and white. It's surprising sometimes!

One quilt shop I visit has a piece of red plexi/plastic to view fabrics through - another way to "neutralize" the color and just see the value.

Michelle

HouseDragon

Love her fabrics for the sampler! Using the step-by-step directions will enable even a beginner quilter to successfully make the quilt.

Please keep us informed on your progress following her BOM.

DonnaC

Just a little tease here... I've decided to go in a completely different direction with this BOM. Will post a photo of my fabrics this evening but... when my photo was changed to B&W, I thought... why not B&W??!

klswift

Depending on your color preference (and your stash), you could go with either the darker greens (the darker green you show has a lot of white in it) or the burgundy (the color at the center of the flower). You might even audition something in the chocolate brown area.

gmcsewer

If you have a printer you can lay them out with a sliver showing of each color and copy them in B & W. Also try arranging them in dark to light and copy again. You will be able to see which ones blend in and which ones stand out. I made a scrap quilt and used cream or white for background and them picked dark and medium to complete the blocks.If you don't need too large of pieces you could fussy cut some of the prints to get dark or light.

zozee

Since you've decided to switch to a black and white palette, then grey would be your medium. Of course, value is relative to what it's compared to. Cream is light until you put it next to white; then it's "dark"; put cream between white and brown, and it's medium.

A white-grey-black ordering of fabric would certainly be easier to determine value, but ... be sure to look at scale. When you chop up fabric into small pieces, you want to be sure you capture the whole color you're going for. Prints that are too big will have large expanses of color and you won't be able to guarantee every piece you cut is the color you want. So pick some solids, tone on tones, small dots, checks, geometrics, florals, paisleys, etc, that will show up in each piece you cut.

Claire123

Changing the picture to B & W really helped! Prints are hard! I honestly feel there are a lot of fabrics with similar values and scale. See if you can vary both. I would add some blenders, low volume prints, and/or reads-as. See if you can space the larger scaled fabrics apart a little. This way you can still include ones you truly love.