"Whit" pattern by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Company; quilt pieced by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life

One of the first decisions to be made when planning a quilt is the choice of background fabric. Sometimes this is the hardest part of making a quilt: it's easy to decide on favorite fabrics, but what type of background will really make them shine? Sometimes the choice is easy: solid white or a darker color might clearly work best. Sometimes two background choices have to be made as in the quilt above which features Moda Bella 9900-97 as the flying geese background with Moda Dottie as the secondary polka dot background.

And sometimes "low volume" or light prints included in a collection make the very best background choice of all. The two Schnibbles quilts above both use Moda fabrics by Minick and Simpson with the background selections for both quilts chosen from the lights in the various collections. There is also the option of combining solid background fabrics along with the lighter fabrics in a collection for even more variety.

"Tidbit" pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Company pieced in Floral Gatherings fabrics

A variety of light prints from the Floral Gatherings collection was used for all of the backgrounds in the mini quilt above with the outer border pieced using the beige floral on cream.While use of these light prints for block backgrounds adds a lot of interest to this mini quilt, the prints are not overwhelming in these combinations and allow the block fabrics to stand out.

"Nested Churn Dash" pattern by Jane Davidson pieced by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life

Sometimes the very best "low-volume" backgrounds come by using light prints from a variety of collections. The scrappy churn dash quilt above is king-sized and features fabrics from nearly every Minick & Simpson fabric collection. All of the lights and "nearly light" fabrics used for backgrounds also come from Minick & Simpson collections: every print is beautiful as it stands alone, and in combination, the variety of light background fabrics really adds an extra element of interest to the quilt.

When choosing fabrics for your next quilt remember to think about the variety of options for background fabrics. You just might want to pick up some extra yardage of your favorite light prints for the collection to use for part or all of your background!