So you want to make a Quilt – Fabric Part 3
Choosing your Fabric Color
In my last post on Fabric we looked at some basics in types and texture of Fabric. Perhaps a bigger part of choosing Fabric, whether we realize it or not is in the color of the fabrics we choose to use in our quilting projects. There are people who devote entire life times to doctorial studies on color and its affects in painting/fabric etc.
I plan to touch on a few areas to hopefully help – not muddy, in choosing Fabric colors for you next Quilting project. I had heard about the Ives Color Wheel. As it turns out that’s not easy to find, what there is out there are many interpretations of of Dr. Herbert Ives color research.
I found the following info in an article by Janet Wickell on color theory. The first wheel has the Prime colors – yellow/red/blue or yellow/magenta/cyan in printer ink talk. If you mix any two Prime colors in 50/50 you will get orange/violet/green which are your Secondary colors.
The next completed wheel shows the Tertiary colors which you get by mixing any two adjacent colors from the secondary wheel in 50/50, such as 50/50 yellow and green for yellow-green
Choosing colors to put together in a Quilt is where all the fun begins! You have some of the following color combos:
Analogous Colors – Take your main color choice the two colors on ether side it of the wheel those are Analogous
Complementary Colors – Take your main choice and the color directly opposite on the wheel is it’s complementary color.
Color Triad – If you take just the three Prime colors and think of that triangle, now turn that triangle around the wheel the three colors at the triangle points are all part of that triad.
Monochromatic Colors – This is fabrics all in the same color theme – ie. all blues
Confused? I hope not. There are three other considerations (notice a trend 3′s) that affect your colors.
Shades – This is adding black to darken a color
Tones - This is adding gray to make a color less intense
Tints – This is adding white to lighten
After you numb your brain with lots of color theory, it all boils down to pick the colors you like and go with them! Color choice all depends on what are you doing for a Quilt project – you may want quiet earth tones, for a soft warm quilt, or you may want your colors to clash and stand out,
so as I said find what you like and -
QUILT ON!
Next time Thread.
Return to: Home Page
