Picking Fabric for a Quilt: Part 1 – The Creative Process

Friends, I am so excited about this guide to picking fabric for a quilt because it is a topic that comes up A LOT! This is a hefty two-part series with tons of good information, so I encourage you to bookmark both posts so you can revisit and reread them any time you start to feel overwhelmed or anxious about the fabric selection process. Here's a link to the second post, Picking Fabric for a Quilt: Part II Design & Color.

Picking fabric for a quilt can come with a lot of emotions — emotions about our personal creativity, our love for the person we are making this project for, and even emotions about our own self-worth and whether or not we are “good” at this craft.

My goal with this guide is to not only calm anxieties, but to help you discover your own personal style and feel confident that you are making good choices. Because let’s get real, we ALL experience self-doubt. But what if I told you that self-doubt is actually a part of the creative process? Would you look at it differently?

The Creative Process

Everyone’s creative process looks a little different, but there are general steps and common emotions that we all experience to one degree or another. By clearly identifying the process and normalizing those emotions that accompany that process, I want you to feel two things:

1. You're not alone. This is a shared human experience that we all have when making something new.
2. You can do this. Picking colors and fabrics for a quilt is a skill that you can master.

So what are these steps and emotions we all experience? Let me first share a bit about my past. Years ago when I was an art student in college I used to feel enormous amounts of anxiety about the creative process. Just the thought of a blank canvas could spike my heart rate and send me into a sweaty panic.

I just had no idea where to begin. The thought that every piece of art I made needed to be my best work was too enormous, too overwhelming! I found myself debilitated by fear. I would crack jokes to my friends about how I didn't care, and that's why I would wait until the last minute to throw something together. The truth was, I did care. I cared a lot. I was just scared.

Finally I came up with a formula that helped me so much, I now apply it to every creative thing I do, whether it's designing a fabric collection for the first time or designing a quilt pattern for the one hundredth time. It’s simple. It’s effective. It takes the mystery out of the process and replaces it with actionable steps. We are now going to apply this formula to picking fabric for a quilt.

33% Research + 33% Plan + 33% Execute = Art

Step 1: Research - It's a journey.

This first step lays the foundation for our quilt so it can’t be skipped or rushed. This is what you should keep in mind while hanging out in Step 1.

• Get inspired. Find what sparks your creative joy. I’m talking about stuff that makes you FEEL. It can be the love you feel for your son’s preschool teacher, a sense of wonder looking at a sparkly shop window display, appreciation for a beautiful tile floor in a coffee shop, serenity from big fluffy white clouds in a bright blue sky, or thankfulness while peering down at the reflections of a tree in a puddle. 
  
  Be curious and childlike! Let your fingers glide over surfaces and experience inspiration through all of your senses. Inspiration is all around us. Once you start looking at your world as a continual source of inspiration, you'll have a hard time seeing it any other way.
• Be intentional. People have said to me, “You’re so good at picking colors. How do you do it?” Well I don’t do it because of some magical skill I was born with. Heck no. It’s because I’m always on a color journey.
  
  I’m always observing the color combinations around me. This gathering of information, picking what I like and discarding what I don’t, is the background dialog in my head. I have been doing it for so long that most of the time I don’t consciously know I’m doing it. Any time you catch yourself thinking, “Ooooh! I like that!” Take it. That color combo now belongs to you. 
  
  Probably 90% of the color choices you make are because of what you see and like in the world around you. Before sitting down and picking fabrics for a quilt, though, it’s important to research with intention. I’m very intentional about seeking out color and texture inspiration. I have specific designers and brands that I watch knowing they will inspire me. If I have a specific aesthetic in mind, I can research art, places, and people with that same aesthetic.
  
  If I'm feeling stuck or even just grumpy, I force myself to go on an intentional inspiration-seeking walk around the block. The weather is crummy half the time here in Chicago where I live. The sky is gray and the earth is brown, but that doesn't mean inspiration is gone! Oh no, it just means I need to be more intentional in finding it.
• Take notes. Gather up your bits of inspiration and save them as well as you can. That can be an album of photos on your phone, a Pinterest board, a journal, a running post-it note on your desk, a cork board full of pins — whatever works for you!
• Designing a chair? Look at lamps. This was a funny little piece of advice given to me by a Creative Director at Crate & Barrel back when I licensed some quilt designs with them. She told me that the best inspiration comes from things outside of what you are designing. So when she’s designing a chair, she avoids looking at other chairs. Instead she researches other pieces of furniture, nature, and architecture.
  
  So if you are researching fabrics and colors for a quilt, you can look at other quilts, but you may be surprised to find that something else helps more in pushing your tiny sprout of an idea into full bloom. 

Be curious and childlike! ...Inspiration is all around us. Once you start looking at your world as a continual source of inspiration, you'll have a hard time seeing it any other way.

Step 2: Plan - I see you, self-doubt.

In the second phase of the creative process we finally start pulling fabrics and creating the blueprint for our quilt. This is likely when you will experience the most self-doubt. It may even help if you say to yourself, “I am going to doubt my choices. Everyone does it. That’s part of this creative process.”

Here’s something important I don’t want you to forget — self-doubt is not to be ignored, just noted and placed aside. The more you try to ignore it, the bigger it gets and the longer it lurks around being a pest. This may sound like an odd thing to do, but you can even say, “Self-doubt, I see you. You are trying to tell me I’m not good at this, but that’s a lie. I’m setting you aside so I can get back to work.”

Self-doubt can also be an important rubric for how we’re doing and the progress we’re making. The more you practice this creative process, the more you are cultivating confidence in your instincts and THAT right there, my friends, is how you get really good at pulling fabulous fabric combinations for your quilts. You start trusting your gut.

The more you practice listening and trusting your gut, the quieter the voice of self-doubt will be. I can’t promise it will go away, because after over 20 years of doing this I still experience it, but I can tell you that once you learn to identify it for what it is, it holds no power over you so you can get back to work.

Self-doubt I see you. You are trying to tell me I’m not good at this, but that’s a lie. I’m setting you aside so I can get back to work.

Picking Fabric Takes Time

One reason so many of us doubt ourselves in this step is because picking fabric takes longer than you think it will. It just does. But here’s a fact — the amount of time it takes you to pick fabric has nothing to do with your skill in doing it. It’s OK to take your time and let a fabric pull percolate on your table. Come back to it later. You’ll have a fresh perspective.

So let’s get into the practical nuts and bolts of how to plan. In the second part of this series I will break down composition and color when planning a quilt. For now, here’s an overview.

• First pick your quilt pattern. The type of quilt pattern you pick will define what kind of fabric you should choose. 
• OR First pick one hero fabric. If you have a piece of fabric that you LOVE or maybe something that’s sentimental, you can pick a quilt pattern based on making that fabric stand out. For example if this is a large-scale print that needs space to be seen, pick a quilt pattern that uses large pieces or blocks that give the appearance of framing the fabric.
• Second, pick your fabric. In Part II we will dive into Foreground vs. Background, Contrast, Value, Hue, Saturation, and Scale. Sounds like a lot, but we'll walk through it together.

Step 3: Execute - It’s a party!

When you throw a party, are you the type of host who flutters about refilling glasses, wiping up crumbs, and triple checking there’s toilet paper in every bathroom, all the while forgetting that parties are supposed to be fun? If so, I challenge you to sit back and trust all of the planning you did. Enjoy the process! Let yourself flow, relax, and feel the present moment.

On occasion, it does happen that while you are making your quilt you realize you don’t really like how one fabric is looking. Just change it out for something else, then get back to enjoying yourself. Self-doubt, you’re not invited to this party!

Now that you feel confident in the creative process, Part II in this series will get into the specifics of actually picking fabric. Let us know in the comments what your creative process looks like and if you found this helpful!