Having Fun with Fabric Selection - The Simple Strategy of 3-Yard & 5-Yard Quilts

Have you ever stared at your fabric stash and wondered where to begin? Which fabrics work together? How do you create a quilt that really shines? Our fabric selection strategy takes the guesswork out of the process, making it easy to create beautiful 3-Yard and 5-Yard quilts with confidence.

Sorting through your fabrics is fun - it's like a bonus shopping adventure with a project in mind. Let's dive in!

Grab a bunch of your fabric contenders and lay them out on your table. You will want to first sort the fabrics into three categories: focus, light, and dark. During this step, make quick decisions and organize without overthinking.

• Focus fabrics are the star of your quilt. It is most likely a larger and bolder print.
• Light fabrics usually act as the background of the quilt.
• Dark fabrics are the dark punch or pop.

Did you know? Tone and value are terms used to describe the relative lightness or darkness of a color or fabric.

Once you have sorted your fabrics, it is time to pull together the perfect combination for a stellar quilt project. This is where you will "play around" and be a bit more selective; after all, you are building your masterpiece! Pick your focus fabric first. It is the lead, the star of the show, and you will want it to influence the colors, scale, texture, value, and overall style for your light and dark selections. Throughout this process, it's important to remember that contrast between fabrics is one of the keys to a successful finished quilt.

Building a 3-Yard Quilt Kit

Now that your fabric is sorted into categories, it is time to build your quilt kit. Let's start by selecting for a 3-Yard quilt project.

Your focus fabric may be light, medium, or dark overall, and that is OK! Once you have chosen your focus fabric, use its colors, texture, value, and scale to guide the selection of the remaining fabrics. In the example above, Fabric #1 is a light focus fabric. You will see that Fabric #2 will need to be lighter, so it contrasts beautifully in the quilt.

Your lightest fabric, since it is most often the background, tends to be a textural or tonal print. As mentioned above, this fabric needs to read lighter than your focus. Does this mean that it always must be a subtle print? No! You can play with scales of prints as well; you just don't want the fabrics to blend in too much together. The fabrics need to be read distinctly from each other.

Fabric #3 - the darkest fabric - is a punch or pop pulled from the focus fabric. In the example above, having the warm brown brings a lovely contrast while not being so matchy-matchy. Other options would have been dark-sage green, gorgeous coral, or turquoise blue. Sometimes, pulling a color that isn't so prominent in the focus fabric allows those pretty accent colors to stand out even more.

Expanding to a 5-Yard Quilt

Below is another example of fabric selections. You'll see this version has the 3-Yard and then 5-Yard fabrics outlined.

To make a 5-Yard quilt, you will need two more fabrics to make the pattern sing!

Fabric #4 is your secondary focus fabric. This acts as a sidekick in print and color and is often a different scale than Fabric #1. In the example above, the smaller scale, more prominent turquoise coloring, and additional lighter accents in the print contrast well with Fabrics #1, #2, and #3.

Fabric #5 will be either lighter or darker than your secondary focus fabric. Keep in mind, it will need to contrast with all the other fabrics as well, so nothing blends in. It may be a medium value, solid, smaller-scale print that helps balance the overall combination.

One more note from the above example: Fabric #3 and Fabric #5 are similar in color and value. That is OK because Fabric #3 has more print texture, so the two fabrics read distinctively and these selections work well.

Have fun making your own "kits" out of your stash. Why not make an afternoon of it and pre-select fabrics with the Fabric Cafe formula? That way, you'll be straight to stitching even faster for your next project!

Shop With Confidence

Now that you have a good foundation on the strategy of fabric selection, what fun you will have pulling combinations together!

Shopping has also gotten easier! One of the biggest advantages of the Fabric Cafe method is that once you have selected your fabrics, the shopping is just as simple. The beauty of the 3-Yard and 5-Yard quilt method is knowing exactly how much fabric you will need to purchase. It's easy to shop with confidence because there are no complicated fabric requirements or lengthy supply lists to manage.

For our 3-Yard quilts, with just one yard each of three fabrics, you can make a lap quilt. With six yards - or two kits - you can make a twin-size quilt, and with 12 yards - or four kits - you can make a queen/king-size topper.

Our 5-Yard quilts start a bit larger and can be enlarged further with a single border or made into a queen/king-size topper by using 10 yards or two 5-Yard kits.

See a fabric that stops you in your tracks but don't have a plan - yet? Buy a yard or two so you know you will be able to incorporate it into a future 3-Yard or 5-Yard project.

Challenge yourself to use a non-traditional focal fabric for one of your kits. Try a bold texture, a large-scale print, or even three different colorways of the same design to create a modern, colorful quilt with plenty of wow factor.

Ready to stretch your creativity? The Fabric Cafe formula makes fabric selection simple, so you can spend less time second-guessing and more time quilting. We cannot wait to see what you create!

In our next Behind the Seams blog, we will take a closer look at switching fabrics in the quilt and getting creative by pushing the limits of the fabric positions as they are currently used.