Ombre Fabrics - Make the Shading Work for You

Have you seen all the shaded fabrics in your local shops? Most often they begin with a light colour next to one selvage and by the time you are at the other selvage they are a darker value of the colour.

Wikipedia explains that Ombré is the gradual blending of one colour hue to another, usually moving tints and shades from light to dark.

Here are some examples of these types of 'shaded fabrics':

Stonehenge Gradations Ombre
by Northcott
A fusion of colours in this fabric,
but still light through dark.

Stonehenge Gradations Ombre
by Northcott

Here are more styles of shaded fabrics:

The colours don't change in this fabric.
The scale of the dots and their spacing
changes  across the width of this Jane Sassaman fabric

Here is a digitally printed fabric with a
rainbow of colours across the surface. 

A Cardinal Christmas by Hoffman
In this fabric the size of the trees and
the value change across the fabric.

Why Ombré? With just one fabric you can get the 'value' changes that are so important in your quilts.

I used two of these shaded fabrics in my recent pattern, Gradation Crossing. 

You can see clearly how I used the fabric for the sashing and cornerstones in my quilt. The blue parts of the block are made from the same fabric! All the different values of this colour were cut from different parts of the fabric.  The brown values in the blocks work the same way. 

Next time you are shopping for fabric in your local quilt shop, see if they have some of these types of fabrics and see where you can make that shading work for you.

And if you would like my pattern, you can buy it here.