Have you ever worked on a quilt and been confused about which color was which?
Have you ever decided to change the fabric in a quilt pattern?
If so, then you probably have had fabric confusion. The symptoms include the following statements:
- What color was that?
- How many colors are there?
- What did I plan to use this for?
- I can’t tell the difference between these!
- Oh @#$% I just cut the wrong one!!!
Yup, fabric confusion in quilting is real and causes both physical and pocketbook (credit card) pain.
FABRIC MAP
There is a simple solution to prevent plenty of misery – a Fabric Map. Unlike those on Google or Apple, there no one will tell you that you took a wrong turn. If you hear voices, they are all in your head. We can’t help you there. We hear them too….
This map will capture your thoughts at the time you planned the quilt. It sticks a pin in that point of time, so to speak.
It provides a tangible reference to your thinking at that point in time. Literally, a map of your thoughts. Ok – enough psychobable.
A Fabric Map simple takes swatches of the fabric you picked and applies the PATTERN LABEL to them.
When you read the pattern and see Raspberry. You look at a piece of paper with a fabric swatch on it and look for the matching word – raspberry. Then, you use the fabric that matches that swatch. Pretty simple – yeh?
I did this all of the time when doing embroidery. I didn’t think of using it for quilting until my friend Tammy showed me an example for quilting.
I love people who connect the dots for me. It was brilliant! She is brilliant!!
So I am sharing her nugget of knowledge with you. I have prepared a crazy little video for you explaining how to create a fabric map. In it, I show the one we created for the Forget Me Not Quilt.
Here is the link for your viewing pleasure.
A Recent Example
Recently, another quilter, Ann, shared her experience with changing colors in a quilt.
“It was interesting how to use different colors than the pattern used. I decided that the original color name were just names. So, my fabrics just got new names. Makes following the directions easier. I’ve attached a picture of how I did this. It worked great on block 1.” – Ann
I am attaching photos of the Spice Mill block using the specified fabrics, Ann’s containers with the renamed fabrics (her version of a map), and the block with her colors! Isn’t the result amazing!
Please share your method of keeping track of fabric and colors in your quilts, by commenting on this post.
Happy Quilting!
Laureen
