How to Choose Colors and Fabrics That Work Together in a Quilt

Choosing colors is the part of quilting many people find hardest, and the part that makes the biggest difference to the finished quilt. The good news is that a few simple ideas take most of the guesswork out of it.

Contrast matters more than color

If you remember one thing, make it this: a quilt pattern is drawn with contrast. Where a dark fabric meets a light one, you see a shape. Where two mediums meet, the line blurs. When a quilt feels flat or muddy, the cause is almost always too little difference in value between fabrics, not the wrong colors.

Tip: Photograph your fabric pull and view it in black and white. You want to see clear lights, mediums and darks. If everything turns the same gray, add a lighter light or a darker dark.

Color schemes that always work

• Monochromatic: one color in many shades, from pale to deep. Calm, elegant, and very forgiving.
• Analogous: colors that sit next to each other on the color wheel, like blue, teal and green, or red, orange and gold. Harmonious and warm or cool depending on your choice.
• Complementary: two colors opposite each other, such as blue and orange or purple and yellow. Bold and lively; let one color lead and use the other as an accent.
• Scrappy: many colors held together by a consistent background and steady value contrast. Great for using up your stash.

Choosing a background fabric

The background is often the largest amount of fabric in a quilt, and it decides how the rest reads. White and cream feel fresh and make colors pop. Low-volume prints (light fabrics with a little texture) add interest without noise. Dark backgrounds like navy, charcoal or black make brights glow. Whatever you choose, it needs strong contrast with the fabrics meant to stand out.

Mix your print scales

A quilt made entirely of busy medium-size prints can feel chaotic. Mixing scales gives the eye somewhere to rest:

• Large prints for the biggest pieces or as a focus fabric.
• Medium prints to carry color through the quilt.
• Small prints, tone-on-tones and blenders that read almost like solids.
• Solids for crisp, graphic shapes.

Use the 60-30-10 idea

Borrowed from interior design: roughly 60 percent of the quilt in a main color or background, 30 percent in a secondary color, and 10 percent in an accent. It's a guideline rather than a rule, but it's a reliable way to get balance without counting every piece.

Let a fabric do the choosing for you

Look at the selvage of a printed fabric you love: many designers print small color dots showing every ink in the design. Those colors were chosen to work together, so pulling solids and blenders to match them is a shortcut to a palette that hangs together.

See it before you decide

Color choices are hard to judge from a stack of folded fabric, because a quilt mixes them in proportions and shapes you can't see yet. Quilt Preview shows you the finished quilt in the exact fabrics you photograph, so you can try a navy background against a cream one, or swap a single accent, and compare before you cut.