There are three strategies I use to “trick” myself into getting more quilting practice.
I have recently bought myself a new machine, and I really need to become friends with it fairly rapidly. But, as I mentioned in my last post about quilting, I am hopeless at practising my quilting, especially when that quilting practice is purely for the sake of practice. Don’t get me wrong, I think quilting practice is a brilliant idea, and I highly recommend it. It is just that I never actually get around to doing it.
So, I pondered recently: “Why this is?” And I have decided:
Like most of you, I am busy. Non-urgent, non-critical activities tend to fall by the wayside. including in the sewing room. My quilts are quilted to deadlines, such as birthdays. Quilts without deadlines often end up as UFOs. Pure practice falls into an even lower priority category than UFOs! Deadlines are key!
Fabric is expensive in Australia, even the rubbish quality stuff. Occasionally I actually do go into my sewing room with the intention of practising. But then I balk at making a AU$10+ (US$7) fat-quarter practice quilt sandwich from my pretties. (This is a cheap estimate of the value of a fat quarter-sized quilt sandwich at retail prices here). And as often as not, I just walk out again. Essentially, I resent the monetary cost of practice.
I am a goal and progress-driven person, and I am not actually very good with exercises that don’t have a concrete end point. I get “quilter’s block” when faced with a blank quilt sandwich. And I have very little patience for tasks that have no greater purpose than practice. I hope some of you can identify with this! I suspect I am not alone, and I think this reason is really the main reason why I do not practise quilting very often.
So then I wondered: “What can I do to fix this? How can I get more quilting practice without the mental torture and budget blowout?”
Well, I have decided that to cause more quilting practice to happen, I have to play to my personality strengths and my situation. And these are: I thrive on goals. I love to help other people out. I have little desire to keep the crafted objects I make, as the creative journey and the gifting have always been my strongest motivators. And finally, I have to keep costs down (don’t we all?!). So there are three things I am now deliberately doing to incorporate more quilting practice into my life.
The solutions
To get more quilting practice into my life without causing a blowout in available time and harming my quilting budget I have:
Found a quilting group to be accountable to.
Combined my quilting budget with my gifting budget when this makes sense.
Signed up to help a local charity quilting group.
Finding a quilting group to be accountable to
I have started meeting regularly with other quilters who have a formal show-and-tell regime, and an optional homework schedule. This gives me both the deadlines I need and a broad goal. My need for a purpose is satisfied without adding too much stress, because I can choose not to participate in any particular exercise. Here’s one small project already completed from this new motivation: the Dandelion Wishes appliqué.
If you can’t access a similar local quilting group, you can get the same outcome by committing to a quilt-along online and staying on schedule. Here’s a free project by Lori Kennedy, where you are encouraged to practice multiple quilting motifs.
Leah Day also has quilt-alongs that cover lots of quilting skills, although hers will cost you monthly for the pattern. I am sure you can find a quilt-along to suit your needs with a fairly simple internet search.
Combining my gift and quilting budgets for more spending power
I have started thinking more strategically about combining my quilting practice with gifting. Some people like to turn their practice sandwiches into gifts.…. such as quilt-as-you-go lap quilts, small bags, purses, placemats, heat pads etc. Well, instead, I am now turning my gifts into practice sandwiches. This means that I start with the person and the gift in mind. Then I work out how to incorporate the quilting practice I want/need to do into the construction of that gift.
For instance, this last month when I needed to practice my feathers, I sat down and designed a cushion (throw pillow) that my friend with an imminent birthday would really love. Then I worked out how to quilt it with feathers. The feathers happened because her birthday was the deadline. There was no blank quilt sandwich to spook me, there was a very good purpose for the exercise, and no “wasted” fabric. Perfect!
Charity quilting benefits you and others
I have just signed up to help a local quilt charity quilt their quilts. This means that someone else makes a quilt top and pays for the fabric and batting to make the quilt. When I receive it, it is already basted and my job is to quilt it. So I will hopefully get a great deal of quilting experience for the price of the thread and my time. There is a loose deadline, and a very good purpose. And as an extra bonus I get experience trying to decide on quilting patterns for quilts that are outside my usual style. If you are looking to strengthen your quilting skills I strongly recommend finding a quilting charity group to donate some time to. You, the charity group and the quilt recipients will all win!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: a free resource of colour combinations to try on your quilts.
Hello – Happy Colour Inspiration Tuesday! Today we have a soft feminine colour scheme for your quilt inspiration, colours that would look lovely on a little girl’s quilt or would suit a lady with quiet, dignified tastes. Introducing “Lily Pad Glow”.
The Lily Pad Glow colour palette was inspired by a pretty pink lily flower. The dark water and the yellowing leaves in the background really highlight the freshness of the flower as it reaches out of the pond. These colours make me think of Spring.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Lily Pad Glow
The “Lily Pad Glow” colour palette is dark sea green, blue, taffy pink, egg nog yellow, light sage green and light sienna brown.
Perhaps if I was using this colour palette for a little girl I would drop the sienna and replace it with a bright teal green. Here are the two related palette so you can see what I mean.
I would try this palette on a quilt by using most of these colours in fairly equal proportions. This would maintain the fresh, almost confectionary feel of this collection, especially if you used white sashing or background. But if you or your recipient really like pink, you could try concentrating on the warmer pinks/yellows/browns and just use the greens and blues as highlights. Play with it until you find Your perfect combination!
Don’t need girly colours today?
Perhaps you are looking for something a little more masculine? Try the “Blue Fox” colour scheme instead….
Today’s Photo Credit
Today’s stock photo is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. While there is no obligation for me to tell you where I got this photo, I love to give credit where credit is due. So, if you would like to also use this lovely photo, it was provided by Ahmed Saffu via Unsplash.
P.S. For your convenience, I have placed all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesdays in one place. Find them easily for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: a free resource of colour combinations to try on your quilts.
Hi – Happy Tuesday! I love purple and green combinations on quilts….. I haven’t made many so far but I sure do admire them a lot!
Today’s colour palette was inspired by a stunning photograph of a tulip bathed in light, so I have simply called it “Purple Tulip”. I think I have found a new favourite – I want to try a colour combination similar to Purple Tulip on a quilt very soon!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Purple Tulip
The “Purple Tulip” colour palette is teal, plum, dusky rose, midnight blue, cadet blue and rose pink. If I had eight colour slots in my colour scheme template I would have added a light yellow. I even tried removing various colours so I could fit light yellow into this palette. But every colour seemed to be needed to keep Purple Tulip true to the feel of the original photo. So, I am giving it to you here as a bonus colour!
I would try this palette on a quilt by using the blues as highlight colours, and the purples, pinks and greens as my main colours. I would also consider adding a dark purple to add more dark contrast to my quilt if I wanted a really dramatic effect. Play with it until you find Your perfect combination!
Don’t like purple and green? Never mind…..
If you like the blue colours in this palette, but are not into purple and green so much, discover the “Blue Fox” colour scheme instead….
Today’s stock photo is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. While there is no obligation for me to tell you where I got this photo, I love to give credit where credit is due. So; this lovely photo was provided by Sarah Kothe via Unsplash.
P.S. If you would like to use this photo for your own projects, you can find all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.
Let’s explore the concept of colour value from a quilter’s perspective…… because paint mixing theory isn’t that helpful to us textile-sewing-person types……
Colour value definition
Colour Value is defined most simply as the relative lightness or darkness of a colour (read here, “fabric”!). The extremes of this continuum are black and white. All other colours lie somewhere in between the maximum darkness of black and the minimum lightness of white. Colour value is very easy to see in a grey scale or in a monochrome colour series. Here are some easy to spot colour value graduations:
Colour value is relative
The colour value of your fabric is relative to other fabrics or items around it. This is a really important fact! This means that whether a colour (fabric) appears to be dark or light can depend on the colours (fabrics) surrounding it. While white will always appear light and black will always be dark, colours closer to the middle of a colour range can appear light next to really dark colours or dark next to really light colours.
This is both great and not-so-great news for quilters. It is great, because it means that it is not necessary to use the extreme values of a colour to achieve good contrast in a quilt. A pastel quilt with a few well-placed mid-tones can look just as awesome as a vibrant quilt with saturated colours and a few dark highlights. Look at the image below. Both of the panels contain good contrast, even though they only cover a small subrange of colour values.
Colour Value can be complicated……
This relativeness of colour values is also “not-so-great” because you need to understand the relationship of colours with each other to understand how they will look together. This is tricky, but remembering that colours will appear lighter next to a dark colour and darker next to a light colour will help avoid nasty surprises. Apart from this, the best method of working out “what works where” in a quilt is often trial and error, even for seasoned quilters. For this, I find a design wall is extraordinarily helpful. If two fabrics or blocks affect the appearance of one another, it’s nice to know before you sew! Experience and practice are also the best antidotes if you suffer a lack of confidence in this area.
When I am making a quilt with lots of repeated blocks in varied fabrics, I always do a trial layout of my quilt blocks on the floor or a wall. Some layouts will always be more visually appealing than others, partly due to colour value distribution. There are usually lots of nice layouts, so it is silly to choose a jarring one that will disappoint you just because you didn’t experiment a little with block placement. And don’t stress about getting the “right” layout. There will be lots of great combinations. Just choose one you like.
So, remember: the Colour Value of a fabric (or even a whole block) is simply how light or dark that sucker is. But this is always assessed in the context of surrounding fabrics.
That’s pretty simple right? Right!
Where it gets trickier now, is to start thinking about how to determine the relative colour values of fabrics of unrelated colours. That is, between tints and shades of different colours (hues) rather than of the same hue. And then there are tones…… OK, I am thinking we should quickly define hues, tints, shades and tones before we go any further.
Hues, Tints, Shades and Tones (only the stuff that is helpful to quilters)!
Hues, Tints and Shades
A hue is a pure colour that has not been diluted with white or black. Hues are what we generally think of as colours, and are usually found on simple colour wheels. Blue. Red. Green. Yellow etc. For this exercise, let’s pick one. Let’s say this Purple. Now, a tint is the same purple, but with some white mixed in – or in terms of fabric, most likely with less dye applied to the white background fabric. One example tint of the the original purple is this purple. On the other hand, a shade is also the same purple, but with some black mixed in. An example isthis purple. This colour may be created on fabric by mixing the original purple dye with black dye.
You need to remember that adding white or black doesn’t change the colour (hue), just its relative colour value (lighter or darker). It also decreases the colourfulness (because the colour is diluted by the black or the white).
Tones
As for tones, I’ll let Google explain…..
“A tone is produced either by the mixture of a color with gray, or by both tinting and shading. Mixing a color with any neutral color (including black, gray and white) reduces the chroma, or colorfulness, while the hue remains unchanged.”
The best illustration I can think of is the colour wheel in GIMP software. The triangle in the middle of the colour wheel points to the selected colour hue. The colour graduation along the edge between the hue and white (the lower edge of the triangle) covers all the tints of the hue. The colour graduation along the edge between the hue and black (the uppermost edge of the triangle) covers all the shades of the hue. Every other point within the triangle is a tone of the red hue (ie has some red, some white and some black in it). Except, of course, the leftmost edge of the triangle. This edge is actually a pure grey scale and has no red in it at all.
Comparing colour values between your fabrics
Comparing colour hues
Let’s now go back to talking about comparing value between completely different hues. For example – a shade of yellow vs a tint of green. As I mentioned before, this is where things get a lot more tricky – where a lot of books stop helping you, and a lot of quilters lose their confidence.
Hues have colour values relative to each other, just as the tints and shades of one hue can be compared. Pure yellow is not as dark as pure blue. Unfortunately, it is harder to judge value relationships between hues than it is within a hue family. And of all the colours, colour value relationships between bright hues are the hardest to judge.
Comparing colour tints, shades and tones
It is a bit easier to compare tints, shades and tones of different colours. This is probably partly to do with two facts: they are easier to look at, and they are closer to grey. If they were all grey, it would actually be relatively simple to order them.
To illustrate this, chose one of the tone/tint/shade families above and think of each colour as a grey. Now can you order them? Maybe, maybe not, but you will probably get further than if you try the same exercise with the pure hues.
Now try squinting at them (or decreasing the brightness on your device’s screen). This cuts down the amount of light entering the eye, and allows the rod-shaped light-sensing organs in your eye to predominate over the cone-shaped light-sensing organs. This is a useful trick because rod sensors don’t detect colour, only the cone sensors do. (This is also why at night everything appears to be various shades of black and white and grey).
You are now using grey as a comparison point; a visual anchor. The closer these colours appear to grey, the more monochrome the series becomes and the easier it is to deal with.
Fabrics in the real world are usually multicoloured! HELP!
On top of all this, we need to know how to compare fabrics that aren’t all one colour!! Very few quilters exclusively use solid single-colour fabrics all the time in every quilt. Perhaps a few hardcore modern quilters do; but most of us use a variety of fabrics over time, including prints and batiks. So, we will have additional challenges in determining the value of these fabrics. There some extra things to keep in mind when thinking about the value of these fabrics.
What to remember when considering the colour value of fabric prints
Mottled solid fabrics (also known as textured solids) are nearly as easy to categorise as plain solid colours. The colour value of these fabrics is the average of the colour across the surface. Stand back from these fabrics and the colour variations will blend together. The overall colour you see tells you the overall value of the fabric.
Small scale prints/batiks behave similarly to mottled solids. A small red print on white fabric will look pink from a distance. A small black motif on white fabric will look grey. Unless you are fussy-cutting these into tiny hexies, treat them like mottled solid fabrics and visually “average” the colour value.
Large scale prints need to considered much more in light of how you are going to use them. If you cut a large scale print into smallish pieces, some of the pieces will be completely different colours and values to other pieces. Determine the colour value of each piece individually. If you are using medium size pieces, be aware that one edge/corner of a piece may have a completely different colour value to another edge. This can play havoc with your placement of surrounding fabrics. The easiest solution is to use large scale prints in large areas – then the colour value differences that the fabric designer chose will work for you instead of against you. If you still desire large scale prints in a complicated quilt design where colour value is important, then it is best to fussy cut them or choose a fabric print with limited colour variation.
Depending on the print, medium scale print fabrics are treated either as large scale or small scale print fabrics. Now you have the skills, you will be able to decide!
I still need help determining the colour value of my fabrics!!
Thankfully there are a few simple tricks you can use to determine the colour value of a fabric, whether it is a solid colour fabric, a batik or a print. In a post coming soon I will go through all the methods I know, and what I think you need to know about each one. You might be surprised….. I personally think the techniques most commonly marketed to quilters are the most flawed. You can do it better yourself without buying a thing! Subscribe to my blog to be the first to know when I publish this post soon!
Remember: using colour value contrast in your quilt can make your design stunning, whether it is a landscape or other pictorial quilt, scrappy, appliqué, modern geometric or anything in between, And stunning is what we’re aiming for! But also remember, stunning is objective…. first and foremost your quilts should be appealing to you…. if you like your design then you will enjoy the creative process. Always be learning, but also make sure you are Quilting your Own Story!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: a free resource of colour combinations to try on your quilts.
It’s Tuesday again already! This week we have a classic colour combination that I think I’ll never tire of. Calming blues with warm browns. Inspired by a stunning photo of a fox curled up in snow reflecting blue light….. I’m calling this palette “Blue Fox”.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Blue Fox
The “Blue Fox” colour palette is light steel blue, cadet blue, grey, dark olive, brown, mid brown, light slate and dark olive. Use these different colours in different proportions to get the effect you want. If you use a high proportion of blues, you will produce a very calming palette. Alternatively, focusing on the browns with blue highlights will give a very masculine look – maybe just the thing for a quilt for your favourite bloke? Using the two colour families in equal proportions will give a very lovely. mature palette that would look great on the wall or couch. Like always, there are no right or wrong combinations, just the ones you prefer and those you don’t.
Blue and Brown not your thing? That’s ok!
If you like warmer, much redder colours than “Blue Fox”, you may like “Butterfly Loves Red” instead!
Don’t miss your weekly dose of colour inspiration! Follow along by subscribing to this blog. Or you can find lots of colour schemes anytime you like: follow this board from Clever Chameleon on Pinterest.
Today’s stock photo is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. While there is no obligation for me to tell you where I got this photo, I love to give credit where credit is due. So; this lovely photo was provided by Ray Hennessy via Unsplash.
Join me next Tuesday to explore another colour combination possibility for your quilt projects. In the meantime, look around you to find colours similar to Blue Fox in use, and notice whether there are other colours you’d like to add or substitute. Change it to make it truly your own. Remember: choose the colour combination that You like best…… always make sure you are quilting your own story by celebrating your own creativity!
P.S. If you would like to use this photo for your own projects, you can find all the unaltered Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesday in one place in my Colour Inspiration Collection.