Bits of color: Quilting expert offers advice fabric

Have you ever looked at a quilt and thought to yourself, "I wonder why the quilter used those fabrics"? Have you looked at unusual color combinations and thought, "I would never dare use those colors together, and yet they seem to work"? Have you ever struggled with putting together fabrics and colors and patterns of your own?

Fabric selection is an issue many quilters struggle with, says Brenda Bailey, quilt designer and owner of Pie Plate Patterns in Fountain Green.

Bailey made her first quilt when she was 6. "It was a doll quilt that my grandmother helped me make," she says, and that was when she fell in love with sewing. "My grandmother had an old treadle sewing machine. She would let me sit under her chair and work the treadle."

Bailey taught home economics and sewed clothes for all her children, but she didn't get back to quilting until she and her daughter took a class at Snow College. For the past three years she has designed and sold patterns.

Bailey talked about the basics of fabric selection at a class at the Utah Quilt Guild's Annual Quilt Festival, held recently at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center.

There is both art and science to choosing fabric. "Common mistakes include using too many busy prints or not having enough contrast," she said.

But the most important thing, she said, is to pick something you like. "Bonnie (her daughter) and I would never pick the same fabrics, and that's OK." There is so much fabric out there, because everyone is drawn to different fabrics. But don't let choosing them get in the way of your enjoyment.

"I've always loved fabrics, and I love the creativity involved in quilting," said Bailey. "To me, it is very relaxing, very fulfilling. It takes me to my quiet spot. I can take a few minutes to get away from all that's going on in life."

But if fabric selection is a struggle for you, there are also some basic principles of color and design that can help. Here are some of Bailey's suggestions:

1. Start with the color wheel. We all learned about the primary colors back in elementary school. The way the colors are arranged on the wheel can help you combine fabrics in ways pleasing to the eye.

There are several possible combinations, said Bailey. "An easy way to make a quilt that looks good is to do a monochromatic quilt. Pick one color and use various hues and shades of that color."

Complementary colors — those that are opposite each other on the color wheel — are another possibility. Yellow is across from violet; oranges are across from blues, for example.

A variation on that is the split complementary pattern. This uses one color and the two colors adjacent to its opposite on the color wheel: red, yellow-green and blue-green, for example. Or orange and blue-green and blue-violet.

Recent comments