Background Fabrics

Happy Monday, or Tuesday by the time some of you get this in your inbox. I had a busy day today with supervising the boys homework, moving my long arm to its new home and than doing groceries. When I got home from the grocery store, I thought I had just enough time to sew for an hour before watching a TV show with my Husband. I was sewing away, when all of a sudden I remembered it was Monday and I had yet to write my blog post!

So here we go. 

I just wanted to share with you some thoughts on background fabrics. The go to for many people, including me up until about 2 years ago was white solid. However I got really sick of doing a white solid all the time and have since switched it up a lot, from colors to different fabric blends to multiple background fabrics in one quilt. 

A white or cream tonal is a great way to start breaking out of the white solid background box. It adds a little texture but it still really simple. 

Blender prints are also a great alternative to solids, they are not quite as stark and add some movement, my favorite is Melange fabrics by Stof, and Thatched by Robin Pickens, both have very little extra color but blend well with a lot of the current fabrics and have great looking texture. 

I have switched up my colors in backgrounds a lot, light pink, light blue, light grey, dark grey, navy and chocolate brown are some of the latest colors for backgrounds in my quilts.  

I am currently working on a quilt using a black Moda Crossweave, I must admit that I am not a huge fan of working with it. I love the texture and look of it in my quilt, but it is really messy to work with (think black strings everywhere!) I have also used Essex Linen in some of my quilts it has a little stretch to it but it definitely adds a great texture to the quilt. 

My absolute favorite thing to do right now is using multiple low volume fabrics in one quilt, I find they find add a lot of interest to the blocks without overtaking the whole quilt. 

What are your favorite background choices? Do you stick with solid white, other solid colors, or multiples?

If you always do the same thing I encourage you to play around a bit, lay your fabrics out on various colors and textures, and see which one pops your fabrics the most, it may surprise you!

Have a great week, 

My Dad turns 50 this week so we hope to celebrate with him, and than my new long arm should also be arriving this week and I am so excited to get it all set up!

Kayla