Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

December Color Palette Challenge

It's the end of the Color Palette Challenge. I've really enjoyed doing this with Judy this year and I wanted to make the last challenge a really interesting one where you could do whatever you want.....almost! You get to pick your favorite color and select several values of that color. In other words, the theme is:

Monochromatic color schemes use one hue (or color) and all of the variation in the composition is from value. Artist Marilyn Wall uses monochromatic schemes for a lot of her fiber portraits.  Monochromatic compositions, like Marilyn’s portraits, are like black and white photo in that they are more timeless. The viewer focuses on the line and shading details and is unable to focus on color. The trick is to have enough value differences to keep the composition interesting. A portrait with 8 value steps allows you to include more detail than one with 4 value steps.

Here's an examples.

This fabric is monochromatic. It's alll red but has varying shades of red.

This fabric is not because it has orange in it.

Got it? You pick the color and make something monochromatic.

Did you create a project with the Novemberpalette? If so, be sure to add a link to your project on Judy's page so that you will be entered into the drawing for a free fat quarter pack.

Color Palette Fabric Selections

I picked this palette because I felt is was an easy one to work with. I hope you agree and will try a project in this palette this month. All of these fabrics are from eQuilter.com and you can click on the photos to link to the fabric.

Of course, it's easiest to look at this as a traditional Christmas palette and these first 2 fabrics are typical choices that work well for this palette.

You can also use part of the palette or even change the tones of some of the colors. I think that each of the following fabrics work with this palette and I hope one of them will inspire a project for you.

 

November Color Palette Challenge

What do you think of this palette? We picked this one because we thought so many of you would be doing Christmas sewing soon.  This one should be relatively easy to work with....I hope!

Did you create a project with the October palette? If so, be sure to add a link to your project on Judy's page so that you will be entered into the drawing for a free fat quarter pack.

Color Theory 18 - Yellow

In the last episode of Color and Meaning we explored the color Red.  I had a poll at the end of that post asking about how you use red in your fiber art or quilting. Here are the results:

For this little series I am focusing on the primaries in the Munsell color system: red, yellow, green ,blue and purple. Next up is

Yellow

"There are painters who transform the sun to a
yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transfer a yellow spot into the sun."--Pablo Picasso

I think the more yellows, the more lights, the better. It alerts everybody. I mean, I guess I'm always a little bit afraid when the yellow comes out, we all get out of it, that someone won't notice it, pile into the back of you. 
Danica Patrick 

I really just want to be warm yellow light that pours over everyone I love. 
Conor Oberst 

Yellow is the most luminous and visible of all of the colors. Our eye processes yellow first and it’s the reason that school buses and taxicabs are yellow (or, more accurately, yellow with a little orange). Pure yellow has a very high reflective value.

When you look at a collection of yellow fabrics you will not notice a lot of “varieties” of yellow as there are with red and blue. When yellow is mixed with even the tiniest bit of blue you get green. Mix in a little red and you have orange.

Yellow stimulates mental processes and activates memory.

Yellow, as with all colors, has positive and negative connotations.

Positive meanings

Happiness

Warmth

Energy

Cheer

Joy

Intellect

 

 

Negative meanings

Caution

Cowardice

Sickness

Greed

 

In American football an yellow flag indicates a penalty

A yellow flag indicates quarantine

In China, adult movies are “yellow movies”

In Russia the “yellow house” is the crazy house

In the Middle Ages Jews were forced to wear yellow patches as a form of identification and later generations were forced to wear yellow arm bands in the Nazi concentration camps.

 

Yellow phrases:

Yellowbellied – cowardly

Yellow fever – a disease with jaundice as a symptom

Yellow journalism – printing news stories with the sole objective of selling more newspapers

Yellow ribbon – remembrance

Mellow yellow – relaxed

Yellow streak down your back – cowardly

In quilting, yellow has been very popular to use with gray, especially in modern quilts. But it seems to me that most people avoid using much gray. Several years ago there was a lot of mention of adding a “zinger” to your quilt. Quilts started appearing with small amounts of yellow or chartreuse green added to great effect. Too much yellow can be jarring but sometimes that’s the effect that you want.

 How do you use yellow? You can check all that apply.

 

How do you use yellow in your quilts?
	Every quilt I make has some yellow in it.
	Yellow scares me and less than 5% of my stash is yellow
	I prefer my yellow more on the gold spectrum, instead of bright yellow
	I use yellow only when I know that the quilt recipient likes it
	I have made a predominately yellow quilt
	I will never make a yellow quilt
	I don't use bright yellow but I do use lots of gold and dull yellows in my quilts
pollcode.com free polls

Color Palette Fabric Selections

A palette like this one is kind of overwhelming when you start to think about selecting fabrics. It's multi-colored so does that mean anything works? 

(All fabrics for this post are from eQuilter. Click on the images to go to the fabric listing on eQuilter)

Here's a multi-colored fabric but it doesn't really work with the palette. There's red instead of pink and the blues are not bright enough. So, how do I match up fabrics to a palette like this?

I look at the palette and first try to figure out which hues are the most important. In this palette blue is, in my opinion, the most important color and it isn't just any blue, it's a turquoise blue. With that information I will first search for turquoise. Within turquoise prints I am next going to look for purple and pinks instead of red. The orange, yellow and green are the highlights. Here's what I found:

I just had to start with this fabric. First, I think it's a perfect response to the palette and I love it.

I think this is another great option. It doesn't have black but if you want a bright project this would work very well.

The batik aisle also frequently has fabrics in this color palette. It doesn't have every single color in the palette but that's never required. The palette servers as inspiration.

Here's a fun kids print that also fits well with this palette.

Laurel Birch is also a fit. It does have red but more importantly there is the magical turquoise blue with the purples and pinks.

It's also good to consider fabrics with the colors in different proportions. This one is predominately pink and purple. It still fits and you might find it more appealing.

Of course, you don't have to use all of the colros in the palette. make a sub-palette in the hues you prefer. Here are some examples.

Now I need to get busy on my own project! What are you going to do?