Monday, June 20, 2011

The value of the Cross - Design Board Monday

Every once in a while I get the question - "How do you come up with the color for your quilts?"  For a while I used to use a color wheel.  But a couple of times I picked colors that I didn't want to really work with because they didn't appeal to me at that moment in time.  So now the way I do it is that I get out my art books and start looking all the pretty eye candy.  I start marking the pages that make me say WOW! At the end of the session, I go back and look at the color palettes.

That's exactly what I did yesterday when I was picking out my colors for the first in my cross series.  All the pictures that popped out at my were green, blue and yellow.  That settled that.  I then went into my stash to start pulling fabrics and realized that I'm definitely a yellow/green kind of a person - got a ton of it!  The yellows were hard  - had to put back all the cool yellows and went for a more buttery feel.  Of course you're going to have leaves and sun -  you gotta do water sky blue!  With them all pulled they needed staged by  value.  It makes it so much easier to do the blocks.

What a change it is stitching these little cross blocks compared to the memorial quilt top!  Feels great to be working with fabrics and colors that I love.  These are only two of the blocks layouts - I'm going to add one more.  I have no idea where this abstract is going - so guess you're going to have to check back and see!

See more great design board's at Judy's Patchworks!

11 comments:

Jane said...

Very nice! I've had blues & greens on my mind lately, too.

Gari in AL said...

Interesting how you choose colors. I usually have a fabric I want to make something out of and then I pick fabrics I think go with it. I have never used a color wheel but I think, for me, it would be too much like using one line of fabric, someone else making the choice for me. Interesting blocks. It will be fun to see where you and the quilt decide to go with this.

Vicki H. said...

looks great and I really love this color combo. You have a great stash of fabrics going there!

AnnieO said...

Beautiful color combination--and you also picked a majority color and two minors, always a great way to make a quilt interesting.

Glen QuiltSwissy said...

did you do a gradation dyeing to get these beautiful color groupings?

glen: so so so sooooo beautiful

Nina Marie said...

Actually Glen - I have a stash of commercial fabrics and a stash of hand dyeds. I do used to buy gradations but now just tend to dye all my own and just dye colors I like. I like to dye a bunch each summer and just keep an eye on what's in my stash and what I might need (looking at color AND value). Only once this winter did I dye a color just because I didn't have it in my stash.

Melinda said...

I love both the colors and the blocks. This will be a wonderful quilt.

Katie Z. said...

Wow! Beautiful

Sue Daurio said...

Love the blues and greens with the touch of yellow!! Love how it looks so far, can't wait to see more.

Kate said...

Wonderful colors. I like how you choose them too. Sounds like a great way to get out of a color rut.

Donna said...

Very pretty fabrics! You're still using the color wheel, just in a more intuitive way. I agree that it's easier to picture when you see other quilts, painting, photos etc. in that color scheme.