Fall into a Quilt Along: Fabric Options
Having trouble figuring out what fabrics to use for the quilt along? I've got you covered! This post will explore the fabric choices of all 7 quilt along hosts.
But wait! What's this quilt along I'm talking about? It's the second ever quilt along put on by Partners in Design, a lovely group of ladies that met during the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop. This will be a fall-themed, free mystery quilt along. Every other week, we'll release a new 12" finished quilt block until we have 12 of them to make a quilt.
Want in? You can find all of the details in my introduction post. I've also put together a handy dandy quilt along page that will be updated with all of the links as we go along.
But for now - fabric choices! Most of the hosts are going with fairly traditional fall colors, but you'll still see some interesting variety. Let's take a look.
Vanda
Vanda Chittenden at Quilting with Vanda pulled this lovely circle of fabrics. The cream that they're sitting on is her background, and she pulled out the blue to have a fun pop of color.
Sherry
Sherry Shish at Powered by Quilting has gone Grunge! The fabrics along the top form her primary color pallet, and she plans to add accent colors as needed for each block.
Karen
Karen Thurn at Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats has decided to make her quilt entirely of spots. She has spots and dots of all shapes, sizes, and styles.
Jennifer
Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter is using a mixture of prints and batiks from her stash. She's planning to go scrappy with her background, as well.
Bobbi
Bobbi Bridgeman at Snowy Days Quilting (That's me!) is sticking with her love of batiks. She's chosen Bali Watercolors 1895-534 Hemp by Hoffman for the background, and will be raiding her stash for scraps of fall colors. She plans to add more browns, and just a touch of black and white for accents.
April
April Adams at JANDA Bend Quilts is also going with batiks. She got her focus fabrics from Connecting Threads. I love how rich they are!
Abbie
Abbie Danahy at Sparkle On is using Kona solids. She also fell in love with this plaid, so she's thinking about how to work it in. It may become a border, or go on the back of her quilt.
How much fabric do I need?
After seeing all of these beautiful options, one question may be top of your mind - How much fabric do you actually need? The nature of this quilt is that it can vary quite a bit based on what you want to do. We will be providing patterns for 12 blocks that each finish at 12" square. At the end of the quilt along, we will give some ideas for setting the blocks, but that part is ultimately up to you.
If you're using a single background fabric, I would recommend 2 yards for the blocks. That will give you plenty of wiggle room for mistakes. If you want to use the background in your final setting (sashing, cornerstones, borders, binding, etc.), you'll need more.
For the main fabrics, you'll notice that most of the hosts have chosen to go scrappy. The individual blocks just need little bits of each fabric, so this is the perfect opportunity to pull from your stash and use up those scraps.
If you want to stick to a more controlled fabric selection, Sherry figured that she needs approximately a half yard each of her 7 focus fabrics (She's the one that's using Moda Grunge). She's still planning to pull in some accent colors as needed. Once again, this is just for the 12 blocks, and doesn't allow for how you want to set them in your finished quilt. If you're nervous, it never hurts to get more fabric. You can always use the extra on the back.
Sharing is Caring
I hope this has inspired you to go find your own fabrics. We would love to see what you choose! Please share your fabric pull on Instagram with #fallintoaqal and in the Partners in Design Facebook group.