quilting turnaboutpatchworkqal

Choosing fabric and machine binding video tutorial – Quilting in 2021

As part of the series Quilting in 2021, today’s tutorial focuses on the very start of a project, choosing fabrics, and the finishing of a quilt: binding by machine.

Choosing fabrics is one of the things I like most about quilting.

I’ll share some of the ways I go about choosing my fabrics for any particular project.

There’re many ways to choose fabrics that will go well together but let’s just focus on 3 simple ways to find matching fabrics.

To recap:

1. Use fabrics from one single fabric collection

Usually fabrics in the same collection go well together.

2. Using the fabric colour palette

Use the palette to choose the rest of the fabrics that’ll will go well together.

Get a busy print for instance and then match the other fabrics around it.

To match the secondary fabrics try to use tone on tone, solids or less busy fabric. This will ensure that the match is more harmonious.

What about the background fabric?

The majority of the quilts I make have a unifying background fabric.

My favourite colours for the background fabric are whites and creams.

The reason I like whites and creams best is that they add “breathing space” to the quilt as well as making the design pop up.

Black is another good background colour that achieves similar effects to using white or creams.

Applications that help you select a colour scheme

One of my favourite colour tools is Adobe Color. In this application you can create your colour scheme from scratch or upload an image you like and get a colour scheme based on the image colours. It’s a lot of fun to play with it!

Still can’t decide on a fabric collection?

Some of my favourite designers are Heather Bailey, Bonnie and Camille, Valori Wells,  Jocelyn Proust, just from the top of my head.

Do you wish to receive my tutorials in your inbox?

Share your work!

If you make any of my tutorials this is how you can share your pictures:

  • On Instagram please tag me with @teresadownunder and hashtag #teresadownunder
  • Join my Facebook group and post your pictures there


My book Turnabout Patchwork

“Turnabout Patchwork. Simple quilts with a twist” is all about playing with blocks – making a block, slicing it up, and turning or repositioning the pieces to make a completely different block (sometimes two smaller blocks) to yield endless quilt tops.

Buy individual chapters of my book

Now that my publisher is going out of business I have bought the rights to publish my book. Now you can download individual chapters. Each digital download is a bundle with 4 quilt patterns in it.

As well as the instructions and fabric needs to make the blocks you’ll find a section on quiltmaking basics at the end of the pattern that discusses:

  • Tools
  • Squaring up blocks
  • Borders
  • Assembly and quilting
  • Binding

See all the quilts in the book in a real life project

Binding and choosing fabrics for a quilt project

2 comments

  1. Theresa, this video tells me it is private and not available

    Sent from Mail for Windows 10

    Like

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