How to Choose Contrasting Designs for Your Quilt Project

In celebration of Asian Heritage Month, Spoonflower Ambassador Andrea Tsang Jackson made a quilt block featuring the Chinese/Taiwanese/Japanese word for love, 愛, as part of the Asian Love Banner project. In this post, Andrea walks you through how she thinks about selecting fabrics from the Spoonflower Marketplace for both this project and quilt blocks in general because different projects bring challenges and things to think about. In the case of making the Asian Love Banner block, it’s important that the sections of the character don’t get muddled together; however, for other quilt projects, you might want a certain shape or section to really stand out. The secret to either? Contrast.

In the spring of 2021, Berene Campbell of Happy Sew Lucky designed the Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese LOVE quilt block as part of the Asian Love Banner project, which was created in response to the increase in hate crimes against people of Asian descent during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project was originally a fundraiser for a variety of organizations in Canada and the United States that support Asian communities. This quilt block celebrates the diverse Asian cultures of the world and features foundation-paper-pieced sections to be sewn into a banner that says the word for LOVE in multiple Asian and Polynesian languages.

Andrea: For this Asian Love Banner, there are only two designs needed—the background and the character. Therefore, it’s a great way to hone your design selection skills!

(Note: This post mentions Petal Signature Solids, which we sunset in June 2023. However, your projects will still work perfectly with Petal Signature Cotton^®—it’s the exact same fabric and can be printed with any Spoonflower Marketplace design! To find colors similar to what Andrea is using below, we suggest searching for the color name and the word ‘solid’ after it to find similar solid Marketplace fabrics.)

Solids against a busier print background allow the shape of each character, letter or shape to stand out. The edges remain “sharp” and uninterrupted.

Notice the different colours in the background fabric of the below photo. What colours can you see? You can narrow down a range of solid fabrics to complement a design by using colors already in each print.

Similarly, you can use a tone-on-tone fabric that almost reads as a solid, like ivieclothco’s Petal Pink Linen.

If your background is light, a darker colour will stand out better, and vice versa. The print pictured below, perrinphillippas’s Wild and Sandy Snakes with Cacti, is overall a very light design. Picking up on its greys, I wanted a very dark grey for contrast. This solid color is Petal Signature Cotton Solid in Graphite.

Generally, warm colours are reds, oranges and yellows; cool colours are greens, blues and purples. A light blue could go well with my floral print Floral-Multicolor-Dark Blue, but instead, a light pink (Petal Signature Cotton Solid in Blush) is warmer and gives a sharper contrast. It’s still a gentle combo, but a little bit more visually interesting.

A light pink would give a nice contrast to the dark green colorway of my Floral-Multicolor design. However, picking up on the yellow in the print at a higher saturation—that is, more intense—would give it more of a punch. Here’s how the yellow gets pulled out of the design with the Petal Signature Cotton Solid in Mustard:

My final choice was Fireflies – Small by ceciliamok for a midnight garden feel. There were lots of colours in the print to pick from, but this soft pink, Petal Signature Cotton Solid in Blush (a personal favorite, if you can tell!), brought out the rich colours around it.

With a solid color on a print, a lighter color on a darker tone, a warmer color on a cool one and a muted color on a saturated background, this finished block feels like the “love” character is arising from the garden.