FAQs & Help:

Designing Your Own Custom Star Quilt

Four Quilting Techniques

Fabric Color Charts

Native American Designs

A Quality Star Quilt

Cleaning and Storage

HELPFUL HINTS

The COLORS you love add life, beauty, vibrancy, and a very personal touch to your custom star quilt, curtains, or valances.

These color charts are guides to help you select the colors for your CUSTOM DESIGNED quilt, curtains or valance. You are always welcome to substitute any colors you wish in any of Diane's Native American quilts. Some quilts are really easy to substitute colors. Others, however, are extremely difficult----such as the Prairie Star Quilt, which contains 10 different colors! So you might not want to try substituting colors in this quilt unless you are well experienced in the art of color manipulation.

The colors used in each of Diane's Native American quilts have been carefully selected to coordinate with each other. Color coordination is actually a tricky business and requires a bit of skill. Some colors just DON'T go well together no matter what, while other colors that you'd think would clash actually compliment one another very nicely. Color value is another consideration. Do you like all light colors, all medium colors, all dark colors, or a variety of color tones? And, do you prefer "masculine" colors, or "feminine" colors, or "neutral" colors, or a little bit of everything?

You'll also have to decide on the background color of your quilt. It might be a lighter shade of a color that's in the star. Or it might be a neutral color, such as black, white, or tan. Or you might get really adventurous and pick a color that wildly contrasts! As long as it compliments the star and doesn't overwhelm it.

How many different colors can you choose for the star of your quilt? The number of circular rows in the star will tell you. Diane's star quilts have either 7 rows, or 11 rows. Most of the 7 row quilts will have 4 different colors, or 7 different colors. Most of the 11 row quilts have either 6 colors, or 11 colors.

With careful planning, these color schemes may vary. For example: The Prairie Star Quilt is an 11 row quilt, but uses only 10 colors in the star. The Remembrance quilt is also an 11 row quilt which uses only 10 colors. The Owl Dance Quilt is a 7 row quilt which uses only 6 colors. That's because the center colors of these stars are repeated at or near the outer tips of the star.

The "radiant row" is a very important aspect to consider in your color scheme. This is the middle row in the star which separates the inner rows from the outer star point rows. The radiant row looks great in a neutral color such as black. You'll see black used in this position in many of Diane's quilts because it's such a good separater between different color schemes. The radiant might also match the background of your quilt, causing the star points to seem to "float." A floral calico fabric that matches some or all of the other colors in the quilt also works well.

There are basically four different ways to select and arrange the colors on each side of the radiant row:

One: You might choose a "random" color scheme, picking any favorite colors you like!

Two: You might select two different color schemes, such as is used in the Prairie Star Quilt (blue and red), and the Remembrance Star Quilt (pink and green).

Three: You might use a "reverse method" color scheme, like is used in the red, white and blue version of the Good Road Quilt, which uses the same colors in the inner rows and the outer rows---but the order of the colors is reversed on each side of the radiant.

Four: You might prefer the "repeating method," where the color scheme gets darker (or lighter) from the very center out to the radiant row---then this same exact color arrangement repeats on the other side of the radiant. See the burgandy and blue version of the Good Road Quilt for an example.

Diane will be happy to help you out if you get stuck. Happy designing!

See all of the available Fabric Colors