Do you often feel overwhelmed picking and matching fabric colors and prints for your projects? Follow my tips for matching fabric colors and prints and you are ready for the next project!
I have a little story to tell you about my adventure of picking and matching fabric colors and prints for one of my sewing projects. So, when I was pregnant with my daughter I decided to make her some baby essentials, and a crib bedding set was one of them. It must have been the pregnancy and the effect it had on my brain, lol, because I even had a hard time deciding what theme to go with.
Finally, I picked the main fabric print, that I used for one side of the bumper. Look at the picture below, it’s the one with butterflies. Again, there is no reasonable explanation why, out of thousands of other fabrics, I picked that one, lol. After few more rounds to the fabric store I bought, what I thought at that time, coordinating fabrics for the bedding pieces.
As you see in the picture, I created disaster, lol.
I had the chance to make a crib bedding set again and this time I am very happy with how it turned out. Learning from my mistake, I came up with few tips for matching fabric colors and prints for a project.
Let’s dive into matching fabric colors and prints for a project!
TIP 1. Pick the main fabric print first. Always go with the fabric that you truly love, then add other fabrics by picking out colors from your main print. Usually, I choose 3 prints for my projects, but in case I need extra fabric I would go with solid. You can use solid color fabric as one of the 3 fabric prints as well.
Solid color fabrics can sometimes be tricky to use with patterned fabrics. It tends to be too much contrast and fabrics don’t work well together. So, use them with care. A single plain fabric used with a variety of patterns is a traditional option for many sewing project designs. You may also find marbled, spattered, or tone-on-tone fabrics and may achieve a more subtle effect where several colors are needed.
TIP 2. It is very important to match colors not prints
Printed fabrics usually have series of dots along the selvage, indicating the individual color used in the screen printing process. Make sure you include the less obvious colors to liven up your palette.
For my crib bedding set project, I started with plains in the clouds as my main print fabric and built from there. The plains in the clouds act as the multi-color and then I selected my accent color 1 as light blue and accent color 2 as solid white. I think I chose the solid color with care, it doesn’t give too much contrast.
Here I created an example to show you too much contrast between solid color and patterned fabric. I think it’s too much, don’t you?
We have formula now: 1 MULTI – COLOR + 2 ACCENT COLORS from the multi-color
TIP 3. Vary the size and scale of the prints in the fabrics you choose for your project. Mix large, medium, and small prints for more visual interest.
I used these three fabric samples to show you how I matched them. So, the Minnie Mouse print is a large print and the blue whimsical hart print is a medium print. Now, for a small print, I used black polka dot print in order to create some variation.
Formula: 1 LARE PRINT + 1 MEDIUM PRINT + 1 SMALL PRINT
TIP 4. Match similar and opposite prints
Use two prints from the same pattern family and then one that is from another. Here, we have harts and dots (circles), that belong to geometric prints. They have symmetric and predictable patterns. The opposite, in this case, Minnie Mouse figurine print is a free-flowing and multi-dimensional pattern. I think most floral prints would work great as the opposite pattern.
Formula: 2 SIMILAR PRINTS + 1 OPPOSITE
These are the 4 tips for matching fabric colors and prints I follow and they work for me. I hope that you found this tutorial helpful and from now on you would be matching fabrics like a pro!
I have tons of patterns and templates in my resource library, which is free for everyone. All you need is the password to get in, which you can get by filling out the form below.
Have fun matching fabric colors and prints and happy sewing,
