Create Soft Backgrounds with Character and Style
Tips for Working with Low Volume Fabrics!
Very often a crisp white background, or that of another solid color, provides a lovely contrast for the prints in a scrappy quilt. However, low-contrast, or low-volume prints when used for a background add character and richness to a quilt.
It can be a bit of a challenge, however, to keep a quilt from becoming too busy when a wide variety of prints are used all over. Fortunately, a few tips will help you create a wonderful quilt using low-volume prints.
What are low-volume fabrics? In general, they’re white or off-white fabrics with low-contrast designs. Mixing them together can create a beautiful and rich background and tends to work nicely in scrappy quilts.
Learn more about selecting low-volume fabrics in the following article from Cluck Cluck Sew.
A second article from Sew Can She provides helpful guidelines for selecting fabrics for a scrappy quilt with a background made up of low-volume fabrics.
We especially like her method of folding fabric so you can see if a print will retain its overall color theme when cut into small pieces.
You’ll find additional tips for choosing and working with low-volume fabrics in the following article by Sherri McConnell, who says:
“Even though the Low Volume fabrics can sometimes be a bit busy, when combined with stronger design and fabric elements, the variety of different background prints won’t overwhelm the quilt.”
The following quilt was made by Melissa Corry who wanted to use up leftover low-volume fat quarters (those that blended in with the background too much on other projects). 
Learn more and get the free block tutorial and quilt instructions at the following link.
