Wyld Whirl Quilt Along: Part 1 - How to Select Fabric for Your Quilt

Welcome to the Wyld Whirl Quilt Along! My name is Tawnee, I am the owner of Wyldwood Creative, and I’ll be taking you through each step of making the Wyld Whirl Quilt. We’ll break it down into 7 parts and cover every single step of the process from selecting fabric to labeling and binding your quilt.

About The Wyld Whirl Quilt Pattern

I wrote the Wyld Whirl Quilt Pattern to work with the custom fat quarter bundles that we carry in the shop. I would often have customers come in and look at our bundles and say something like “this is so cute but I have no idea what to do with it.” So I designed a pattern to work perfectly with fat quarters! You can easily scale up and scale down the quilt by adjusting the number of fat quarters that you use.

Week 1 Quilt Along Task

This week we’re kicking off this series with Part 1: Selecting Fabric. In this post, we'll be talking about how to choose the right fabric for your Wyld Whirl quilt, no matter what size you're making.

Step 1: Deciding on Quilt Size

The Wyld Whirl pattern is designed to work beautifully with fat quarters, so the first thing you'll want to do is decide on the size of your quilt. Depending on how many fat quarters you use, your finished quilt size will vary. Here’s a quick guide:

Quick Reference:

● 9 Fat Quarters: Ideal for a baby-sized quilt, which is the size I'll be making in this series.

● 16 Fat Quarters: Perfect for a throw-sized quilt 

● 20 Fat Quarters: Great throw sized quilt that will cover your feet!

Step 2: Choosing Your Fat Quarters

At Wyldwood Creative, we curate custom fat quarter bundles inspired by various themes and fabric collections. For example, we recently pulled together a Brother Bird Another Year bundle with 16 fat quarters, which makes a throw-size Wyld Whirl. I made one during our last Quilt Along, and I absolutely loved the result!

You can also choose pre-coordinated fat quarter bundles from fabric collections, like the Flowerland Collection from Ruby Star Society. Going with a collection ensures that all the fabrics are well-coordinated and make the selection process easier.

For my project, I'm using a bundle of Good Spirits Fabrics that we curated for the shop. Since I’m making this quilt for my cat, I had to include some adorable cat prints! To round out the palette, I pulled a few mystery fat quarters that complement the colors perfectly.

Step 3: Visualizing Your Quilt with Quilt Mockup Tools

Once you have your fabric selections, you can use tools like Quilt Mock Up Tool to visualize how your finished quilt will look. Here’s how it works:

1. Head over to quiltmockup.com and select the pattern you’re working with. For this, I'll use Wyld Whirl as an example.
2. Adjust the settings according to your desired quilt size. For the baby size, I set it to 3x3.
3. Start adding the fabric images by copying the image URLs from the shop or any fabric source you have.
4. Paste the URLs into the tool, and after filling in all the fabric slots, hit "Update." The tool will generate a mockup of your quilt layout, giving you a preview of how the fabrics will come together.

What’s fun about the Wyld Whirl pattern is that the tool allows you to keep clicking "Update" to generate new layouts, which is a great way to experiment with your fabric placement.

We have so much fun playing with this tool! It is what we use for all of the quilt mock ups at the shop. If you enjoy using the tool be sure to send Remy, the creator, some funds on Ko-Fi to say thanks!

Step 4: Checking Fabric Contrast with a Value Viewer

Before you commit to your fabric selection, it's essential to check for contrast using a value viewer tool (sometimes called a "ruby ruler"). This tool helps you see the light and dark values of your fabrics, ensuring a good distribution of contrast across your quilt. You can also use the black and white filter on your phone to achieve the same result. You can go for a high contrast quilt that is a mix of values, or a low volume quilt that is all light values. It’s completely up to you!

Here’s an example using the Another Year bundle with the value viewer: you can see the variation between light and dark fabrics more clearly, which helps balance your overall design. 

This trick is also helpful when it comes to arrange the blocks in your quilt. By seeing the values you can make sure the darks and lights are evenly distributed across the quilt.

Final Thoughts

Now that we’ve selected and visualized our fabrics, we’re ready for the next step: pressing and cutting! Make sure to follow along for Part 2 of the Wyld Whirl Quilt Along, where we'll walk through the prep work and get our fabrics ready for sewing.

Stay tuned, and happy quilting!