By Lindsay Conner

Whether you’re sewing for yourself or others, the act of pairing different fabrics together is a way to express your creativity. But how can you make sure that the colors and the prints go together beautifully and don’t clash? This beginner’s guide to pairing fabrics will help you become a master of mixing!

Choose a Fabric Collection

If you’re just getting started with sewing and quilting, you may not have a lot of fabrics in your stash to choose from. This is when it can be helpful to shop for a collection of fabrics! Fabric collections are curated bundles from a designer that include harmonious colors and patterns. You can often buy precuts (fat quarter bundles, charm packs, layer cakes, or jelly rolls) with each print included.

Here’s an example of a fabric collection from Sarah Sczepanski Artxtiles for FreeSpirit Fabrics called “Sublime Summer.” As you can see, there are some blue, red-orange, and white prints with organic swirls, textured blenders, large pebbles, tiny diamonds, and more. A well-curated fabric collection generally has a variety of patterns (large, medium, and small) in the same general color scheme. It also has light, medium, and dark shades of the same color.

Choosing Fabrics From Your Stash (or the Quilt Shop)

If you’re ready to branch out from using curated fabric collections, here are some tips for pulling your own fabrics for a quilt or other sewing project.

First, choose a focus print and solids. Do you have one fabric that you really love? Look closely at the pattern and try to identify a few solid colors that you can pull out. Now find matching solids to pair with it.

Next, take the same focus print and pull some small and medium-scale prints with similar colors. Take a photo of them together. Do you like the way they look together? If it’s too busy, take a print out. Notice how the prints don’t necessarily need to have the same “theme” (flowers can go with computer text print) as long as they are both not dominant or “fighting” with each other.

Next, take your fabric stack of prints and add back in the solids. Remove some if they don’t feel right. Add others in. Take photos along the way so you can see how they look through the screen. What do you think?!

Once you decide what you want as your focus print, try not to steal too much attention away with your supporting fabrics! Here’s another example. Starting with the antique cars, I pulled some other prints, solids, or textured fabrics with similar colors from my stash. Notice that the fabrics that speak the loudest are the cars and the records. Since I wanted those to stand out, I added some quieter fabrics like a pink solid, textured black linen, and simple colored stripes on a white background.

Tips and Tricks

• Dots, stripes, and textured blender fabrics (really small prints that almost read as one color) are popular because they mix well with almost everything! Keep plenty of these in your stash.

• Take a photo of your fabric and turn it to black and white. Do you see much contrast between the fabrics you’ve selected? If not, try to go back and pick some fabrics with light, medium, and dark color values for variety.

• If you don’t have a focal print in mind, try gathering many fabrics in the same color families like grey and yellow. Now mix them together. Pull out any fabrics that don’t look quite right. If your project needs more pop, add a third color!

• Remember studying the color wheel in art class? Look for complementary colors (like red and green) which are opposite each other on the color wheel for bold contrast. Or try to find three colors that are close to each other on the color wheel, like green, teal, and blue.

As you experiment with coordinating fabrics for quilting and sewing, you will gain confidence and discover what you like or don’t like. It’s a skill set that will only grow and become more defined as you continue learning! Do you prefer working from fabric collections or curating your own fabric bundles?