Getting accurate colours and texture when photographing fabric is a nightmare - but it can be done.
 
There are two problems. One is known as "White Balance", sometimes defined as "Colour Temperature", the other is that some fabrics reflect different colours when photographed from different angles.
 
However - if you get the white balance right then 90% of your colour problems will go away.
 
So ... how to set your camera for the correct colour temperature (white balance)..... most recently manufactured digital (& some film) cameras have a "Menu" button. If you press this, then scroll down the choices you will come to an item either marked "White Balance" or "Colour Temp" or possibly just a list of lighting conditions eg sunlight, cloud, incandescent, fluorescent, etc.
 
Set the camera to the most appropriate.
 
Then place a piece of plain white paper in the position you want to photograph your fabric - and photograph the paper... fixing your flash to either "on" or "off" depending on what will happen when you replace the paper with fabric.
 
If you have the setting right - the paper will look white when you preview it.
 
Below are examples of how it might look:
 
Ensuring white is right! 
 
These are, of course, exaggerations - but they are actual photographs of a white piece of paper taken on my camera using the extreme settings. In practice the difference is unlikely to be so much... but you will be able to see it (see the two stars pictures later).
 
If you don't get "2" - reset your camera and try again.
 
Please note well. This must be done each time you photograph fabric - whether plain or in patchwork. Daylight coming through your window will affect the colour temperature - so it is different at different times of day. Similarly, outdoor photography will have variations.
 
Also - please note - most of you will have your camera set to "Auto", if you are confident enough, switch it to "Manual" and set the exposure yourself. When I do this I switch the flash to "on", whatever the lighting conditions, because it is consistent and enures enough light when the ambient conditions are darker
 
I don't have an easy answer to the problem that fabrics can reflect different colours from different angles  - when photographing for publication I cheat and make sure the angle is always consistent.
 
Now let's look at a real situation that was published in your chat group recently:
 
Different colour balance 
 
Picture 1 was taken by Caz, 2 by me. The one by Caz shows a colour distortion weighing towards the blue end of the spectrum probably caused by daylight entering the room from the window and the camera not compensating for it.
 
When you try it do keep in mind that when you learned to drive you didn't have enough hands and feet - because this time you need to remember things like "Did I use flash last time?", "Has the sun come out/gone in?". But persevere because it can be done.
 
OK - you've done all that
 
AND - if it doesn't work perfectly - try correcting it. This is not as difficult as you may think.
 
Most cameras come with a disk containing at least one photo manipulation programme. Whilst it is impossible here to give detailed instructions - all of them will ask you to load the file (photo) and have a (drop-down) menu called "image" or "colour" or "adjust". Inside that menu will be features that enable you to adjust the "colour balance", "brightness" and "contrast".
 
As an example Caz's star can be adjusted to be like these below merely by increasing or decreasing the blue, viz:
 
Adjusting blue values 
Descriptions:
  1. Has minimum blue, maximum yellow
  2. Has 20% more yellow than 1 the original
  3. Has maximum blue (just to show the range)
Have fun with them - but for today's example we just used colour balance.
 
To finish - there are lots of ways you can integrate your patchwork with these (photomanipulation) programmes. One function I like particularly with bright colours is to "invert" the colours (or convert to a negative image).
 
For example using Caz's star:
 
Negative image 
 
Try it for yourself. If you have problems, please email me direct at peter@dean.id.au. I'm not registered with Popular Patchwork and don't want to flood Brendas PMs!
 
If I get several repeated questions I'll post an FAQ page.