How to choose quilt colors

Start with one fabric you love

The easiest way in is a focus fabric: one print you love, often a large multicolored one. Its designer has already chosen colors that work together. Many prints have a row of color dots along the selvage showing each ink used: those are your palette. Pick the colors you like from it, then find fabrics, solids or small prints, that match each one.

No focus fabric? A photo works the same way: a garden, a painting, a room you like. Pick four or five colors from it, including the darkest and the lightest.

Give each fabric a job

Most quilts need fabrics for five jobs. Choosing a fabric for each job, rather than five colors, is what keeps a quilt from looking muddy:

• Background: the ground the pattern sits on, usually the largest amount. Often a light, but a dark background works too.
• Dark: the fabric that draws the pattern, where the eye goes first.
• Medium: the bridge between dark and light, so the quilt has depth.
• Light: a second light, a step darker than the background, or a soft color.
• Accent: a small amount of the brightest or most different color: centers, cornerstones, a narrow border.

Lay the five out light to dark. If two look the same in a black-and-white photo, change one of them. Value matters more than color: Value and contrast in quilts explains why.

Four color schemes that work

These are the same quilt, a Rising Star with a narrow dark border, in four schemes. Each palette is shown light to dark under its quilt.

Warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) seem to come forward; cool ones (blues, greens, purples) sit back. A warm accent in a cool quilt is a reliable way to add life.

Neutrals and backgrounds

White, ivory, gray, tan and black are neutrals: they go with anything. A crisp white makes colors look clear and modern; an ivory or tan softens them and looks more traditional. The two below use different backgrounds and change the mood more than any other choice:

How much of each

Give one color most of the space, one a smaller share, and the accent very little. A common starting point is about 60% background, 30% for the main colors and 10% for the accent. Equal amounts of every color tend to look busy, because nothing leads.

Prints, solids and scale

• Mix the scale of prints: one large, one or two small, and a solid or a tone-on-tone that reads as one color. Several prints of the same size blur together.
• Small pieces lose big prints. A large print cut into 2″ squares shows only a fragment of its design, often just its ground color.
• Solids show the piecing most clearly, and show every point.
• Directional prints need planning: see Directional prints.

Common mistakes

• Choosing every fabric a medium. Make sure there’s a true light and a true dark.
• Too many colors at the same strength. Let one lead, and keep the accent small.
• Judging colors under shop lighting only. Look at them in daylight if you can, and on your phone in black and white.
• Buying exactly enough. Colors change between dye lots, so buy all of a fabric you’ll need at once.