I love fabric; it makes me feel inspired and sparks my creativity! So when Daryl of Fabric Spark asked me to curate the March bundle for the Monthly Sparks subscription, I gave a very resounding “yes!”
I want to share my process of fabric selection because I really enjoyed it and I’ll use it next time I pick fabrics for something. I think if you know you want to make a special project, this could work for you too! I knew I needed a plan to come up with a bundle, otherwise it would just be a hodge podge of 12 of my favourite favourite fabrics, which would still be nice, but maybe not a very cohesive bundle. Since it’s the March bundle, and March is the beginning of Spring, I wanted a Spring inspired bundle. I’m not really into pastels though, so needed something more specific to guide my selection. I looked at some pictures from Springs past to gather some colour palettes.
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I have a really simple illustrator/graphic program on my computer (and my skills to use it are even more simple, unfortunately), and was able to create a basic colour palette layout with 8 colours. Then I just used the colour grabbing tool to pick my colours until I came up with some palettes I liked. I really loved the freedom of making these. It was so easy to switch out colours and grab more until I came up with something that really spoke to me.
WARNING!! Creating colour palettes from photos is highly addicting! You will want to create colour palettes for EVERYTHING!
WARNING!! Creating colour palettes from photos is highly addicting! You will want to create colour palettes for EVERYTHING!
This was the first one I came up with. Pretty, right? I thought so too. I picked some fabrics, and basically came up with February’s bundle…like 6 of the fabrics were identical. Sylvia of Country Clothesline must be a genius 😉 Back to the drawing board for me!
Then I came up with this palette and felt like it had my signature on it. I love bird watching, and wigeons (the duck featured here) are in my top 10 favourite birds to watch.
In addition to these colours for inspiration, I had some other “wants” for this bundle, including at least one each of:
- metallic
- floral
- text
- low volume
- geometric
The Fabric Spark website is probably the easiest fabric shop to browse – you can browse by colour, collection, designer, theme, or manufacturer. You could also search for terms like “metallic” or “feathers” if you want something specific. I couldn’t find the perfect rich brown, so chose that gorgeous fuchsia Blueberry Park instead and I’m loving the pop of colour it adds to the bundle.
Here it is! I’m so happy with it. I normally stick with one collection for projects and rarely mix and match too much, but I’m so glad I went in a completely different direction this time. I think they go together so nicely, without being too matchy-matchy. I was going to show what I’m making with it, but I think I’ll save that for another post (very soon).
You can sign up for Monthly Sparks here, or if you just want this March bundle, you can grab it here.
If I’ve inspired you to create your own colour palettes for your next project or fabric shop, try the palette builder from Play Crafts. My friend found it after she saw all the fun I was having making mine. The tool is really easy to use and you can save the image and even match it to Kona cottons or Aurifil threads!
Disclaimer: I received this fabric bundle in exchange for picking the fabrics and writing this blog post. All opinions expressed here are my own.
Very interesting! When I first started sewing I would I usually fall in love with a fabric, and then search high and low for stuff to match. I learnt quickly that it’s best to buy coordinating fabrics at the same time, bundles are great!!!!
PS Sylvia is pretty awesome!!!!
I LOVE this idea. I may be up for another addicting craft-related habit. Thanks for sharing this!
That palette builder site will be a huge time sink for me. I love coming up with color ideas!
Sorry ladies! I warned you though!