Fabrics and Colors Can Be Tricky
What Colors Are You Drawn To ?
FABRICS AND COLORS
Are you having a hard time trying to match fabrics and patterns ? Are there too many colors and prints to choose from? If your starting to flounder like a fish out of water – your not alone! Trying to decide how to buy and coordinate your fabric and color schemes can be overwhelming and difficult at times, especially for beginners. Your not alone so don’t fret – we’re here to help. We composed some tips that we hope will help you get over some of these hurdles. I hope you first read our basics page just to make sure your comfortable with the fundamentals.
Think of yourself as an artist! What colors would you use on your palette for painting? They will probably be similar to what kind of fabric you would buy for a quilt. Some people like fabric that have bright and colorful patterns, like the beach umbrellas I saw that lined the shore on Myrtle Beach State Park. Other people prefer darker tones and color patterns. Take a look at the walls on your house. When you paint or wallpaper on a regular basis, what colors do you usually end up with? This can give you an insight on what you really like.
THE COLOR WHEEL
Let’s take a minute to look a little more closely at colors themselves and the color wheel . This might give you a better “feel” of the span of colors of your fabrics when your doing your quilt. Take a look at this color layout on this wheel to give you an better idea of how your color themes would match.
The color wheel has your primary colors of red, blue and yellow – they are spread out evenly on this wheel.Secondary colors are made from an equal mix of these primary colors. What is called tertiary colors are all the other colors and are made from mixing one of the primary colors and the adjacent secondary color.
This does sound a bit confusing- I know.
Hold on to your hats ladies there’s more!
The value of a color can be changed to make it lighter or darker too , as you look at the wheel. The lighter colors are called tints are the darker colors are called shades. But don’t get bogged down with these technicalities. Just look at the colors freely like an artist, not an English professor. Let your imagination loose!
Colors are often referred to as different degrees of temperature as well. Looking at the color wheel again, the reds give off a warm feeling like the sun or fire, and are on the right. The coolest colors of blue and green are like the sky or the grass, and are on the left side of the wheel.
When you feel more comfortable with the values of colors, and how the intensity of it changes, you will be well on your way to making a beautiful quilt. You might have noticed already that dark and warmer colors seem to “advance” or stand-out more when you view the fabric,especially when white has been added to the background.
If you remember one thing in all this, and that is in quilting, anything goes! Most all colors will match if you keep in mind that colors will compliment each other, even when they are opposite to each other on the color wheel. It all depends on how you place your tints and tones to contrast with your darker shades of color.
I hope you feel a little bit more comfortable about colors and fabric, and a little less worried. Why don’t you read our page on putting these colors together that will help guide you in making your quilt and patterns blend together so that they look better together.
Just relax and don’t sweat the little things. Drop us a line for reassurance or questions. So don’t worry- things will fall in place!
Just remember that… Girls Just Want To Have Fun!
Thanks for stopping by to visit!
Linda and AJ
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