Color Balance in T-Shirt Quilts

Warning: This post has lots of quilt pictures. All but one of them are t-shirt quilts. So, if you like to see pictures of t-shirt quilts, this is one you’ll like.

When you have a t-shirt quilt made, you want it to look good. I’ve made a lot of t-shirt quilts, and nobody has ever requested an ugly t-shirt quilt. BUT, you also want to use the shirts that are memorable to you. Sometimes these are high school and/or college shirts that are all the same 2 or 3 colors. Sometimes they are random shirts you’ve collected throughout your life and there isn’t a consistent color scheme. Sometimes the clothes in your quilt are mostly the same 2 or 3 colors with a few random shirts that don’t match the others. Luckily the puzzle style t-shirt quilts can be any of those and still give you a nice quilt. I talk a little bit more about some of the advantages of this style here.

Color placement is a little bit of an afterthought in t-shirt quilts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely important, but it’s not the first thing I think about when it comes to laying out the quilt. The first thing is to get the sketch drawn out for where each size/shape piece goes. This comes first because that’s how I know how I’m going to fit the pieces into the size quilt I’m going to be making. Once I know where the pieces of each size and shape go, then I can move the colors around to balance them out.

I’ve always been a little obsessive with the color placement in my scrappy quilts, but I’m certainly not an expert on colors or placement. The thing I tend to be obsessive about is trying to keep same colors from touching. Sometimes this isn’t possible when you only use a few different colors.

When I talk about color balance, I mean that the colors are somewhat evenly distributed throughout the quilt. This is actually a lot easier to do when you have a lot of different colors. Check out the quilt top pictured below. It’s the scrappy version I made of my Sarah Elizabeth Quilt pattern. This one uses a lot of the piece sizes that I commonly use in t-shirt quilts, and it goes together the same way my t-shirt quilt do.

A few of my pattern testers said that they chose to make the yardage version – with the placement of cuts from each print laid out for you in the pattern – instead of the scrappy version because they were worried about ending up with a quilt that had same prints touching or the colors not being balanced. The thing that makes the color balance harder with t-shirt quilts and my Sarah Elizabeth Quilt pattern is that you can only swap things around among blocks that are the same size and shape. So, in the pattern, I mention that the balance is easier if you use a LOT of fabrics for the scrappy version. I think I used about 40 different fabrics in this one.

This is the scrappy version I made for my Sarah Elizabeth Quilt pattern.

Working with a MOSTLY cohesive color scheme

This quilt had a lot of low volumes in gray and white. Most of the higher volume pieces were red and black, but there were two purple shirts in there too.

I was able to use my filler pieces to tie that purple in with the rest of the quilt. I added in some nongraphic purple pieces and spaced them throughout the quilt so that the few purple pieces with graphics would not seem out of place.

Trial and error is also your friend when it comes to color placement. Moving things around until it’s the way you want it can’t be discredited. This does get a little tricky with puzzle style t-shirt quilts since you have to move things around in a way that the pieces still fit. So, you may end up having to just swap things around that are the same size, for example, a 12 inch square for another 12 inch square.

The quilt above is another example of a mostly cohesive color scheme. I loved how the colors came together on this one with all of the blues and greens. I felt like the red and purple in the tie dye really stood out. I love the look of having a tie dyed shirt or two in a t-shirt quilt. I decided to use as many pieces from that shirt as I could and space them throughout the quilt to tie that in with the rest of the quilt.

The one above is an extreme example of the mostly cohesive color scheme. There were only two shirts in this quilt that weren’t black or white, and most of the shirts were black. I decided to use the checkerboard look for the fillers on this one to tie those shirts in with the rest of the quilt. I feel like adding all of the teal and brownish green filler pieces kept the graphic pieces in those colors from looking lonely. The white filler pieces helped lighten the quilt a little since it had so many black pieces.

I really like how this one turned out, and I think it’s a good example of why it’s ok to choose the shirts for your quilts based on the memories. If your favorite shirt is the only pink shirt in a quilt full of navy and gray, send it anyway and let your quilt maker be the one to worry about the color placement. This one also has a specific theme – concert tees.

It is worth noting that I usually cut my filler pieces last. This gives me a chance to lay out the graphic pieces first. I’ll get those pieces moved around so that the color is balanced first and then I have a better idea of what colors to use in all of the spots that need to be filled. Being able to use filler pieces to round out your color scheme is a nice advantage of this style quilt. The t-shirt quilts with simple squares don’t really have this option unless you put a huge blank piece in somewhere.

Working with a lot of different colors in the same quilt

Let’s go back to where I said it’s easier to get a good color balance in the t-shirt quilts that have a bunch of different colors. When there isn’t a cohesive color scheme, it’s just a lot easier to keep the colors looking evenly distributed. The quilt pictured below has so many different colors that it was easy for to me keep two exact shades from touching. This one did have a lot of blues, but the shades were varied enough that I didn’t have to worry about them not contrasting enough when they ended up side by side.

This next quilt is another really good example of how it looks nice to have a bunch of different colors in the same quilt. Having so many different colors made it a lot easier to mix the colors throughout the quilt. It did have a cohesive theme (race day shirts) even though there wasn’t a specific color scheme. This is something to consider for a t-shirt quilt. You can go with a specific color scheme, a theme, a specific time in your life (high school, college, etc) or anything in between. There really are endless possibilities.

Working with a cohesive color scheme

The quilt below was a high school themed quilt. The school colors were purple and yellow. So, all of the shirts have one or both of those colors on them, even the few white, black, and gray ones. I did try to disperse those monochrome shirts as evenly as I could throughout the quilt. I knew there was no way I would be able to keep purple from touching purple. So, I just tried to make it so that different tones of purple where touching instead of two dark purples or two light purples touching.

I’ve noticed that most of my quilts with a cohesive color scheme are school quilts. Check out the Notre Dame quilt I made. All of the higher volume colors in this one are blues, greens, and yellow/golds. However, I noticed something when I uploaded the picture that I may not have noticed when I put the quilt together. Check out the royal blue in the quilt. Most of the blues in this one are navy, but I used some royal blue pieces as fillers to make that royal blue feel like he belongs.

Color balance is important, but I wouldn’t let that be the only thing you think about for deciding which shirts will be in your quilt. Every quilt is different, and every quilt is customized for you.