How do you pick your colours
 

Hi everyone from Canada

I,m just a quilting grass hopper.
Have done one quilt and started a second one.
Here is me question how in the world you all you guys make your colours match up ?
I have never seen a quilt on here that i did not like the material colours.
When I go to look at material I end up just looking at solid and not sure that to get with some design in it.
So what,s the trick ?
Is there some where I can see different material on my computer.
Thanks every one
Tom

I have been told I just have an eye for color. But, if you don't you can use the dots in the selvage of your fabric. Pick a nice print that you may use on a border and there should be enough color dots for you to choose which color you want put into your quilt. I am not too fond of solids as they get boring if you have too much. Choose different scales of prints. Large, medium small and one that reads as a solid. Line up your bolts and stand back. They look different in smaller pieces and from a distance than if you hold each separate. Then again you can always choose fabrics that are in a particular line made to go together.

If I'm feeling uninspired I look for a fabric that has colors that appeal to me and use that as a starting point for my palette. I don't even necessarily buy or use the initial fabric, it's just for inspiration and ideas.

Learning a bit about color theory might help too; there are certain relationships that work well together on the color wheel and once you learn those it helps make it a lot easier to decide what "goes" together.

I mostly rely on my own intuition and taste, though. I lay some fabrics together and I can just tell if one isn't playing nice with the rest; it stands out and just doesn't look quite right. I think most people have this ability, they just don't trust their own intuition! Don't second-guess yourself too much. If you like it, you like it, go ahead and use it! And if you don't...try something else until it clicks!

I usually pick a focus fabric and then look for fabrics that coordinate. I might be lucky since I took so many design classes in college.

Thanks cjsews
So fabric that are a particular line ?
Well the sales people help at the store to tell me what line is made to go together.

Maniacquilter2 what do you mean focus fabric ?

Sorry for all the questions
Tom

Fabric companies like moda have fabrics that are all coordinated. These can be found at quilt stores or on line. A focus fabric is a print that you want to be the highlight of your quilt

I'm fortunate to have a decent stash to pick from so once I decide on the colors I start pulling fabrics off the shelf. Then I line them up on the cutting table in the order I think I want them and leave them there for a couple days or more. I'll walk past the table and stop to look at them to see if I still like them as they are or move them around or even add/subtract from the pile. Am working on a couple log cabin lap quilts right now which I used this plan of attack. Even yesterday while cutting the strips I changed the order around. Most times this works for me.

I also look at the dots on the selvage edge. But if there aren't any, I bring Mother Nature into play. I used to be a hairdresser and that helps me. You may find a fabric that you don't like the print but you do like the colors in it. Often you can use that as your guide. I have often grabbed the shopping cart and headed to the batiks to see different colors that would meld and play nice and not use the fabric. Prints like different paisleys are great for this. Works for me. I'm sure there will be others with great ideas.

I love colour and have always admired Jinny Beyer's work. Here is a video describing her method of choosing fabrics that you might enjoy. Years ago I did have her palette but it was a very old one and I never updated the fabrics in it, so gave it away eventually. You could make a similar item yourself with paint chips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9xV73VpccA

Maybe Craftsy has a class on colour? Here's another blog that has some helpful hints. http://www.diaryofaquilter.com/2013/...c-virtual.html

I label myself as "color challenged." I usually have a great deal of trouble being happy with my fabric selections. Because of that, many of my quilts are shades of one color. I can be very happy with that. It might be an idea for you, at least for the moment. I also like to use white with shades of one color...:) Everything goes with white.

Dina

Great question and some wonderful suggestions. I have taken a couple of workshops on this as I struggle with it too. I am not one that shops a line of fabric so I am often putting together from stash etc. One thing I have learned is that you also have to pay attention to the "value" of the fabric to get the contrast and pop that you see in patterns. So I got one of those red filters to help when selecting. You can also take a photo and change it to a gray scale to see if you have the variety in value needed for the pattern to show.

Try to practice and go online for some other ideas. I think Craftsy has a class on color also.

That is exactly what I do too! I can usually make my final decision in a day or so. What looked nice at first sometimes doesn't look as nice after a day.

Thanks for the web site links some good stuff there.
See you are all one up on me you have your stashes to pick from.

If you have to much you could give it to me LOL

Going to go shopping Wed and see they have.
I saw one nice quilt I would like to make.
But some of the fabrics colors I only need like 2 pieces. Thats where a stash is going to be good.
Or i have been thinking maybe buy a couple of the precut assortment packs and just get more and over time i,ll have a stash also..
Thanks for the help

Tom

To look at fabric on line..... go to quiltshops.com..... there are over 200 quilt shops there, you can look at fabric to your hearts content!

I don't worry about it. I use fabrics that I personally like together. I don't care if others do not like my fabric choices. What ever I feel is right, is right for me.

When I first started quilting I looked for a picture or a quilt pattern that I liked "as is" and then Found fabrics very similar to the picture. As I got more experience and felt more comfortable with my own ideas, I did what ManiacQuilter suggested--find a focus fabric first, then look for others that coordinate. A focus fabric is your 'primary' fabric that you pick first, the one you want to be the center of attention or has most of the colors in it that you like---usually the largest print. Then start auditioning coordinating fabrics with some of the same colors or hues of your focus fabric, but with contrasting smaller prints, stripes or solids. You will get better with practice. Sometimes you learn by making some really ugly quilts---I did!!!

In a workshop I teach on choosing colors for quilts, one technique I use is to find a picture/photograph of something that appeals to you....a garden, a landscape, a designed room, sunsets, even an advertisement. Pull fabrics that seem to match or blend with colors in that picture as your inspiration.
For example, I once saw this picture of native women selling fruit and fell in love with the bright happy colors. I designed some blocks then pulled fabrics that picked up on the same feel as the picture. Here is the result of a couple of them.
Can you see which parts of the picture influenced the color choices in the blocks?:)

Jan in VA

Choose a print you love Then choose coordinating fabrics from that. On salvage edges there are generally a row of colored circles. Those circles are every color used in that print. If you choose fabrics that match those ( color chips) they will coordinate with your print. Download and print ( or purchase) a color wheel and become familiar with it, learn coordinate and contrast ( contrast in a quilt gives it the Spark that often makes it spectacular. ( like orange with purple - opposites on the color wheel)

Thanks
I really like the idea of looking at a picture .

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!!!!!!

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.

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

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 :D ).
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.

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.

I bring my 11 yo daughter with me. She has a far better eye for color than I do and can tell me if the colors work together or not. I also found I do better if I limit myself to 3 or 4 colors in a quilt. The baby quilt I'm making right now is shades of white, pink and lavender. I found out the hard way on it that I couldn't do a lot of different colors and spent some quality time with a seam ripper sorting it out. I can't do scrappy either, I have a lot of respect for those who can. Don't worry too much about prints except maybe to stay with small patterns to start. You're cutting the fabric into little pieces anyway. I love blender type fabrics, they give a little variety while staying in the same color range. It can also be helpful to check out books on quilts at your local library and go thru the magazines there too for ideas of what works for you.
Give yourself some time. You'll get to where you're more comfortable with picking fabrics soon enough.
Rodney

Color wheels and selvage dots are all very helpful, but mostly what I have found is, if I like the colors I have chosen, then it really doesn't matter if they "go" together. One of my friends told me I have a knack for taking fabrics one wouldn't think of using together and making them work.

Go to Craftsy and sign up for last years free block of the month blocks, it is more about choosing and understanding colors that actual quilting, they do make a quilt, but the color is the most imortant thing they discuss. Maybe this will help you.

I never buy "lines of fabric". I usually find one fabric I like, then the rest is hubby's job. He has a much better eye for color than I do. We don't always agree but he really is better at picking.

Count me in the group that chooses a print fabric I really like then picks my other colors and fabric prints to go with that first (the focus) fabric.
That focus fabric can then become the star of your quilt or you can move it into the background and use your other fabrics as the stars. Spread it out and lay your fabrics on top of it, do they show up well and make the eye stop on them? Or does the first fabric call your eye away so that you feel compelled to look at it? If the second thing happens, then you would want to use that fabric as the star of your quilt. Make it the center or main fabric in the blocks, and use the other fabrics for accent. If you don't want to use it as the star, then just keep the other fabrics and you don't have to buy that focus fabric. Look for a fabric that you can lay your other fabrics on that seems to "hug" them but lets them draw your eye first. That will be your background fabric. Often this is a solid or tone on tone. I am partial to tone on tones for variety but am not against a good solid when the main body of the quilt is very busy.

I often choose a print that has many colors in it and pick my colors from that fabric. I use a variety of print sizes in tone on tones and such that will work well together. This quilt was a challenge, the checked fabrics had to be used in the quilt.
The 2nd quilt pictured was also a challenge, we had to use the robot fabric and could only use solid fabrics with it.
Sharon

I have always loved color and was able to put colors together well. My DM had a awful time with colors until I told her to look and study nature, to walk in her flower gardens and study photos. That helped her so much. Look at pictures of quilts you like and study the colors that were used. When I first started quilting I would draw several pictures of my pattern and color them until I found a combination I liked. That gave me a overall view of what my finished quilt would look like.

Ever nice purplefriend
Some day my colors will work out like that.
Went shopping to day and got some bundles of fabric there is 5 patterns in them so Ill start this.
And have been doing a lot of reading and looking at books also .
There sure is a lot out there.
Thanks everyone

Tom

I still do this. I have lots of patterns drawn on graph paper and colored that I haven't even started. Picking fabrics isn't really hard for me as I grew up surrounded by quilts my mother, aunt, and great grandma made, but picking a color scheme is the hard part because I like all the color schemes I come up with. The only quilts I would have trouble doing would be a neutral quilt, I'd be tempted to put some sort of color in it.

cjsews has pretty much the system (if you want to call it that) that I use when picking fabrics for a quilt. Start with a great print, then if you don't feel comfortable picking colors, look at the selvedge of that great print and you will find circles of all the colors that were used in that print and choose from that pallet and you can't go wrong. I've been told that I have an eye for color, but using this method, people will say that you do too.