Fabric Collections: Not Just What You Put Together in a Drawer

Red Collection

We've talked a little about fabric collections. When you walk into a quilt shop, there are lots of different ways you might find the fabric arranged. Sometimes it's by color. Blues here. Reds there. Sometimes it's by subject. You might find all the flowers in one place and all the white on white prints in another.

But you often find fabrics that are clearly kissing cousins.They're not always the same color but they share the same colors. They go together because they were designed to go together. And the very neatest thing about that is that the designers have thought about what you need for a good quilt.

We've talked about contrast in color. Contrast is what makes a striking quilt. But there's lots of kinds of contrast. There's dark and light contrast. Color contrast. Size Contrast. Contrast helps us to make vibrant quilts with strong and showy design.

But contrast isn't the only concern. One of the other things that a good collection has is a consistent style. Are all the prints soft focus? Deeply detailed? From a particular place or time? Fabrics with the same consistent style hold together even if they contrast strongly in other ways.

Designer panel

Let's look at several collections and see how good designers plan that for us.
We'll need

• A focus print
• Small background prints
• A connected neutral
• Midsize prints that give size contrast
• An exciting range of color

  

  Supporting prints

So how does this work? Do you remember those exercises where you pick one of each category? This is exactly how this works. Pick a panel. Pick a background print. Pick two different size supporting prints. Leave out anything you don't really like. Add happy sewing time. Shake three times and you have a quilt.

Well, something like that. Fabric collections make fabric selection goof proof.