The trick to expanding your color palette is the contrasting and complementary colors for blue and purple...and some of the earth tones can play a part in these. When you shop you are thinking in terms of, 'do i love this color? do i want a quilt in this color?'.... Just try to pull the two or three blues that you want to use, take them with you BUT display them for yourself in the proportions you want to use them. Show 6" of the dominant fabric in the plan, but only 2" of one of the lesser fabrics...then 2" of another that might be included. Now when looking at the yellows (complementary for med blue, think french kitchens...they're always blue and white with yellow). But take that yellow and fold it down to 1/2 in to 1 in.... you won't need much to make your blues pop in a whole new way. Turquoise does the same thing for purples (so does sage green)...yellow can look good, too, but purple and turquoise is always a wow!
When in fabric stores, our eyes and brains are on overload.... calm down the stack of your choices and show them to yourself over on a corner or go to a place you can spread out a yard of beige.... now put in your tiny blasts of color to try. You can be guided by the tiny amounts of color in some of your purple print....there will be some there. AND don't settle on one... 3 purples in the darks...one darkest among these, then 3 mediums, then a couple of lights....now start putting in the tiny blasts of color (and pick 3 of those in the same shade, not just one. Keep the samples small, you don't need much). Jenny Beyer calls these 'zingers' and that's what they are. They're so easy to put in whether it's a tiny 1/2" flange border, or shadows under applique.. (i always line my appliques with bright colors that show just the tiniest bit ...makes them really alive), added details like an occasional piece in a block that us mostly purple in every other block or added appliques that are 90% purple with bits of other things here and there to set off your piecing...
Please understand, i'm NOT trying to sell you on making yellow, orange, pink or green quilts.... i'm trying to sell you on making your purple quilts pop in a totally different way. we can see a couple of your quilts in the pix and obviously, you know how to piece precisely and combine your purples to show them off...but you are asking the question...so my assumption is that you would like to stretch your wings a bit...
Ways to help yourself:
1. Look at purple prints on a large scale...not to buy, necessarily, but just LOOK....see how many other colors are there...your white will be in the background, but there will be small amounts of color splashes that make the purple better. These fabric designers are well educated in color theory ... let them teach you just by studying what they have done.
2. Look at decorator's magazines...find rooms that you love....what colors are there...it's not all one color...there are little hits here and there that make the rest of the room come to life...take all those colors and play with them in color cards (paint chips) or stash fabrics...see what happens...but remember the 'folding to the proportions you want'...it makes a big difference...we do not use our colors in the same size, choosing them that way is difficult.
Last edited by deemail; 12-31-2011 at 12:31 PM.