Arcadia Avenue QAL - Choosing Fabrics

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the first post of our Arcadia Avenue Quilt Along. Today we are going to choose fabric! This is one of my favorite parts of quilting. I try to picture a pattern in as many different color combos as possible!

Arcadia Avenue calls for 12 coordinating fabrics, a light, a medium and a dark for the blocks. When choosing the block fabrics, make sure the 12 coordinating fabrics contrast with the light medium and dark. Below are a few examples of color selections for the Arcadia Avenue quilts we have previously made.

Our cover Arcadia Avenue quilt blocks had a rainbow color scheme created from Dear Stella fabrics. We used 12 colorful mini confetti dots to create a rainbow, a solid white for the light, a light grey stripe for the medium and a solid charcoal for the dark.

We made another rainbow themed quilt - this time with bright and colorful batiks from Hoffman California. We used twelve bright 1895 batiks to create a gradation of color, a light grey batik for the light, a medium grey batik for the medium and a black batik for the dark.

The other quilt we made with Hoffman batiks used a Gemstone fabric pack full of pinks, purple, teals and blues. This quilt is much scrappier than the other two. We used a Bali Snap pack for the 12 colors, a pale green batik for the light, a lime green batik for the medium and a black batik for the dark.

This version of Arcadia Avenue has a sunset color scheme using American Made Brand solids. Juli used an assortment of yellow, orange, red and purple solids for the 12 colors, a pale solid pink for the light, a bright solid pink for the medium and a solid magenta for the dark.

Now that we have made a few Arcadias, we are going to mix it up a bit! Here is a little bit about our fabric choices for the Quilt Along and a little preview of what our blocks will look like.

Kristy (my Mom) is digging into her healthy stash of batiks to make her quilt! She is using teal, blue and purple batik scraps for the 12 colors, a light beige leafy batik for the light, pink batiks for the medium and a mottled black batik for the dark. Pink is a little outside her comfort zone so she is going to use it sparingly throughout the blocks. 

I am going completely outside of my comfort zone and making a quilt with very little color.... I know! Hold the phone =] I have been loving all the low volume quilts that are popping up on my Instagram feed, so I dug through my (and my Mom's) stash. I am using assorted low volume fabrics for my 12 fabrics (there will be some fussy cutting!) and a grey tone-on-tone for the medium and/or light. Each block is going to have a color theme for the dark. Block #1 will be pink, so I chose 12 different pink scraps. 

My Mom and liked the idea of each block having a scrappy color scheme so much.... that we are tag-teaming a 3rd quilt! This one will use a different pink (red, orange, yellow, etc.) for the 12 colors, a solid white for the light, a black-on-white hatch for the medium and a black thumbprint tonal for the the dark. 

Now your turn! We want to see what fabrics you are going to use for your blocks! If you have a blog please link up with us using the link-up tool below any time before the next post on 1/19/15. If you don't, we have started a Flickr group so you can add your photos there! We will pick a winner for a small giveaway from everyone who participates. Thanks for stopping by!