Everything You Need to Build, Test, and Trust Your Quilt Palettes

Color can make or break a quilt. But you don’t need to be a trained artist or have a photographic memory of every Kona swatch ever printed. You just need the right tools in your Scout pack.

This guide is your trusty field manual for color-building—packed with every type of tool, method, and trick you can use to choose (and fall in love with) your palette.

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SECTION 1: Physical Color Tools

Let’s start with the tangible stuff you can hold, touch, swatch, and rearrange.

1. Fabric Swatches

• Color Cards – AGF Pure Solids, Confetti Cotton, and Bella Solids all offer color cards.
• Swatch Rings – Use a hole punch + binder ring to make your own mobile palette kits.
• Pro tip: Sort by hue and value. Don’t sleep on the neutrals section!

2. Zollie Palette Scout

• A physical deck of 180 color cards, designed to help artists and makers play with color in an intuitive, hands-on way.
• Use it to create palettes, explore color relationships, and learn how hue, saturation, and value interact—no rules, just vibes (and science).

3. Paint Chips

• Free, easy to get, and surprisingly accurate. Grab ’em at the hardware store and sort into mini palettes.
• Great for playing with hue/value relationships and developing tonal sensitivity.

4. Thread Spools, Floss Cards & the Aurifil Swatch Book

• Thread isn’t just for sewing—it’s an amazing tool for exploring hue, value, and saturation, especially when you’re planning quilt top + quilting thread pairings.
• Aurifil’s Thread Swatch Book includes every single color they make in real thread samples—not printed ink. It’s crazy accurate, super durable, and a must-have for color-curious quilters.
• Try laying out spools in a gradient to test transitions, or match thread to fabric pulls for binding, topstitching, or accent quilting.

5. Scrap Box Sorting

• Dig into your stash! Sort scraps by hue and value, then build mini test palettes before committing.
• Want to go big? Try a fabric pull challenge using only fabrics from your scrap bin.

SECTION 2: Digital Color Tools

These are perfect for testing ideas before you cut into your precious yardage. Tap into these modern tools when you want to explore fearlessly.

1. Adobe Color

• A powerhouse tool for building custom palettes using color harmony rules like analogous, complementary, split complementary, triadic, and more.
• You can upload an image or work straight from the color wheel.
• Bonus: It’s free and doesn’t require an Adobe subscription to use!

2. Pinterest

• Not just for recipes and mood boards—Pinterest is full of curated color palettes, fabric pulls, and inspiration from the quilting community and beyond.
• Try searching for specific vibes like “desert sunset palette” or “retro camping color scheme.”
• Pro tip: Create your own private “Palette Board” to save combos you love for future projects.

3. Design Seeds

• A beautiful archive of nature-inspired palettes pulled from real photos—flowers, landscapes, cabins, and more.
• Great for seeing how color works in the wild and spotting unexpected combos that just work.
• Think of it as a palette field guide curated by Mother Nature and a very stylish editor.

4. Coolors

• Yes, that’s Coolors with two o’s… and it’s a super easy, super fun palette generator that gives you endless combos with the tap of the spacebar.
• You can lock in colors you love, adjust sliders for hue/value/saturation, and even extract palettes from photos.

SECTION 3: Planning + Visualization Tools

It’s one thing to see colors. It’s another thing to test how they’ll work in a quilt. These tools help you bridge that gap.

1. Design Wall Mockups / Quilt Coloring Pages

• Print out black-and-white versions of your quilt block to experiment with color and value.
• Use pencils, markers, or tiny fabric swatches to test combos before committing.
• Tip: Photocopy your block in grayscale to spot sneaky value imbalances.

2. Quilt Ink

• Quilt Ink is a digital quilt coloring app that lets you test color combos using pre-loaded quilt patterns and real fabric swatches from major companies like AGF, Moda, Riley Blake, and more.
• You can preview fabric combos, swap colors easily, and save your designs for reference or sharing.
• Perfect for visual learners or anyone who wants to try before they cut!

3. Color Wheel + Value Finder Tools

• Keep a physical color wheel at your workstation for quick reference.
• Value finder filters (like this one from Feral Notions) help you judge light/dark contrast without getting distracted by hue.
• Scout Tip: Use these tools when your palette feels “off” but you can’t tell why.

Final Notes from the Trail

Want more guidance? Join Quilt Scouts and earn the Color Palette Pro badge this month—plus get access to weekly color challenges, planning tools, and the best dang quilt community around.
👉 Try it free for 7 days