Thursday, June 17, 2010

Tessellation Tutorial - Fabric Choices - Lesson 2

Choosing fabrics will be an ongoing part of this tutorial.
Many of the things I am showing you can also be applied to choosing fabric for other projects.

One way to choose fabrics is to start with a theme fabric that has a variety of colors which will give you a starting point to select the rest of your fabrics.
You will want to choose fabrics that:
1. Include darks, mediums and lights
2. Include multi color prints, prints with two colors and possibly prints that are what I call solid prints. These are fabrics that have one color but have texture added to them with a small print.
3. Plaids, stripes, checks and other geometrics can add interest to your collection.
4. Pick some bright colors and some dull subtle colors.
5. Fabrics should not be an exact match. It is better to be a variation of the colors.
5. And the most important rule: DO NOT PICK ALL YOUR FABRICS FROM ONE MANUFACTURER OR ONE COORDINATED FABRIC COLLECTION. If you do this all your work will be for naught as your finished project could look like you bought a preprinted panel!

I'd like to share sections of some students projects with you so you can see some groups of fabrics that work.



Look carefully at this group of prints used by a student and see how she followed my guidelines for selecting fabrics.



This shows the fabrics another student who followed the guidelines used.

I hope you will enjoy doing this as much as my students and I have.

You are also welcome to come along for the ride even if you do not do the project.
But I am warning you - when you see how much fun it is you may decide that you too have to become a part of this project.

Questions are always welcome.

2 comments:

Lyric said...

I've always loved tessellations! What fun things to play with!

Carole said...

Kay.. would you recommend a multi-colored batik?