How to Choose Fabrics for Happy Camper
The Happy Camper quilt pattern is a design that plays with transparency and “overlapping” colors. It’s a fun look but can make choosing fabric colors a bit difficult. In this blog post, I will cover tips on choosing colors for the Happy Camper quilt, plus I put together several color scheme ideas to get you started!
If you are interested in learning more about color theory for quilters, then definitely I check out my other blog post Color Theory for Quilters (How to Choose Perfect Quilt Color Palettes).
About the Pattern
The Happy Camper pattern is written for two colorways: a bold five-color version and a limited, but more modern, three-color version. I will show examples of both versions.
Color Play
The key to choosing colors for this quilt pattern is to consider the “overlapping” areas of color to create an optical illusion. When creating a mockup, I recommend starting with your two main colors that will make up the large and small squares (Fabrics B and C). Then choose your two secondary colors that will create the intersecting points (Fabrics A and D). Try to choose a “mix” of the two primary colors.
Light Background
When using a light or white back ground fabric, I recommend making your two lighter fabrics the B and C fabrics. I would then use the two darker colors as the “intersecting” A and D fabrics.
In the example on the left, you can see that I chose a darker teal for the point where the lighter teal lines cross. I then picked the brownish pink for where the light teal and light pink lines intersect.
On the right, I chose a light pink for the larger square (Fabric B) and a darker pink for where those squares cross paths (Fabric A). The medium blue serves as Fabric C and the dark navy blue (Fabric D) is where B and C intersect.
Dark Background
When using a dark background, like the examples below, I suggest making the intersecting parts the lightest colors in your palette, rather than the darkest shades as with the light/white background examples above. This will help give the illusion of transparency and prevent your quilt top from having a checker board appearance.
Monochromatic
Monochromatic color palettes utilize a single hue in a range of values – the tints, shades, and tones. A monochromatic color scheme will range between lighter and darker versions of the base color or hue.
Five-Color Monochromatic Palettes
Here are two examples of monochromatic quilts. These are both the five-color version of Happy Camper. Each quilt features 4 different shades of the same base color. The medium contrast between colors gives these quilts a nice balance. The example on the left uses 4 shades of the same blue, with the two darkest blues serving as the intersections. The same is true for the pink example on the right.
Three-Color Monochromatic Palettes
Similar to the previous examples, these two quilts are still monochromatic, but higher contrast. The colors chosen are much darker than the background fabric, which gives the quilt a much bolder look. You can see here I chose only two shades of the same base color with a light background fabric.
Color Temperature
Color temperature can be divided into warm and cool colors. On one side of the color wheel are colors in the yellow, orange, and red spectrums. These are considered warm colors. While colors on the other side of the wheel are in the green, blue, and violet spectrum. These are considered cool colors.
Warm vs. Cool Colors
Here is another fun color palette idea. Try using fabrics that are the same color “temperature”. On the right, is a palette using all cool colors, while the example on the right is all warm colors. These are bold and bright examples, but you get the point.
Colorway Ideas
Testing Colorways on QuiltInk
Now that you how the pattern is designed and have a few ideas, you can test them out to see which combinations you like best! I’m so excited to share that the FREE digital coloring page will be available on QuiltInk. You can try out countless different fabric combinations using pre-loaded solid fabric swatches from 15 different manufacturers!
Have fun with and please be sure to share! Use the hashtag #happycamperquilt #happycamperqal #modernmoonquiltpatterns and tag us @modernmoonquiltstudio on social media.
Happy Quilting!
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