How to Choose Fabric for a Quilt Using Accent Color Fabric

Many of today's patterns for quilts and garments and accessories, call for what's called an accent color or accent fabric. One of the easiest ways to choose an accent fabric is to simply find something that pops against all the other colors you're planning on using. In this quilt, as we look at it, we see a very bold color palette. We've got lots of very bright lime, yellow, green, and red violet. Those two colors are direct compliments. So, choosing a color like this turquoise, which is very different from this direct compliment pairing and the turquoise is used here and here in a background or negative space is an unusual choice for an accent, but it works really well because what it's doing, is it's interrupting the relationship between these two direct compliments. And so, it's doing its job well and adding that little pop of something different on the surface of the piece. On this quilt, it is the bright cerulean blue that's acting as an accent. It's doing that because it's the only pure hue that's present. We have shades and tones and toned tints everywhere else on the quilt and bright blue just popping in different areas across the surface to really draw the eye across the surface of the quilt. And that's something that an accent fabric or accent color can do a really good job of and that is moving the eye of the viewer across the surface of the piece. This is a quilt that I've made a couple different times, mostly out of black and white fabrics. And each time I get to choose an accent color for it. Here we have a variety of reds. On the outside edge, we have a pure hued red, and then we have some tones and shades of reds also. But that red plays really well off the black and white. Red has a lot of energy and it actually works in two ways on this quilt. Because there's so little of it, it acts as an accent, but there's just enough of it to really calm down the relationship between all the black and white on the surface of this quilt. So, accents are really important to really pack a wallop or, really draw the eye or the attention of the viewer to the quilt. Pay attention the next time your pattern asks for an accent and choose something that is a different intensity from the rest of your fabrics, and you'll be successful.