seamstome

I dont know how to teach color, contrast, hue and scale. Does anybody have an idea?

To preface this, I do not do scrappy quilts...not that I dont appreciate them and this is not a kick against them.

I have a friend, no seriously it's not me, who desperately needs help in the color arena. All she does is scrappy quilts. I love her and in many ways she is a more talented quilter than I am but most of her quilts are simply not appealing because she doesnt get color, hue and scale.

Intellectually she gets the concept of color but she has no feel. If the she doesnt have somebody pick her fabrics for her, her quilts are either way too busy, way too bland or the colors clash. I know her feelings get hurt when people say a polite thank you and never use them.

Problem is that she has been what I call a closet quilter. She quilts by herself, doesnt use patterns except the very traditional ones, doesnt take classes and is working off of an older stash that she picked up willy nilly at sales. We were in the LQS and she didnt have a clue what pre-cuts were and why would anybody buy FQ's and not several yards of one fabric.

She also wants to use up this tub of mismatched older fabric. Bluntly put, she has huge chunks of ugly fabric that doesnt match itself or anythingelse. Like some horse fabric, some patriotic--only dark though, some cool modern retro stuff but no coordinating lights and now that line is sold out, a bunch of older calicos in odd cuts and dated colors. IMHO, she is going to spend more money trying to get stuff to match this fabric than if she gave it away and started just buying fresh for a single project.

We are going to make a log cabin quilt and yesterday we went to buy fabric to match some of her existing fabric and that is when I realized she had no concept of scale or hue. She wanted to do this quilt in oranges, greens and yellows and asked for my help picking. Sounds cool I love brights. She has some fabric in this colorway that she wants to work into a quilt. It was over an hour to make her understand that not all yellows were going to read light in this scenario and no you cant throw some olive green and burgundy batiks in with 30 calicos for punch....well you could but even your mother is not going to put it on her bed.

I want to help her because she loves quilting and is actually fairly good at it. She can make flowers and feathers FMQ which I could not fathom doing!

The only thing I can think of is I would like to see her do a few Moda projects or some of those Amy Butler ones where you can buy the whole line and use it to make a specific pattern or even a Joann's BOM. Not my thing but I would be willing to do them with her so that she could get some feeling for color.

I hate to see all of her work go unappreciated.

bearisgray

Might she be color blind? (Seriously - ?)

If she is an excellent FMQ quilter - maybe trade FMQ quilting for pieced tops?

Teaching her how to do that might be trying to teach someone that is tone deaf how to sing with perfect pitch.

QuiltE

Yes, she asked you to go with her to the store. Though, I saw no where that you said, your friend is not happy with her colour results. "Help" to pick fabrics may have a different meaning to her, than it does to you. If this is the case, there's no reason why you should be imposing your own desire for colour coordination on her efforts.

If she is wanting to learn more about colours, then a huge dose of patience may be required!!! :)

oksewglad

Maybe you could start on small quilts, like Doll quilts. Work with easy patterns using specific colors: ex.--rail fence in a monochromatic theme, basic 9P in yellow and blue (complementary), a 4P in brights(yellow, orange, lime green). I'm sure you get the picture.

And sad to say, maybe bearisgray is right and she is color blind.

BigDog

If she likes it, that's all that matters.

I'm with her. For the life of me I don't see the allure in fat quarters, jelly rolls, charm packs, etc etc. There's always something in collections that I hate, and what a waste of money they are. Unless you're totally adverse to cutting fabric, buy by the half yard (or more or less) and stop piddling around with stuff someone else decided looked good together.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

ckcowl

to make a successful quilt- especially a scrap one all you have to do is work with VALUES lights-mediums and darks-
color, hue and scale have nothing to do with a successful quilt except varying scale adds movement.
lots of very well known quilt designers work completely in 'grayscale' while designing so that color/scale does not interfer.
if your friend can sort her fabrics into lights mediums and darks she can make wonderful beautiful quilts. i've made wonderful log cabin quilts people love that have some pretty bizzare fabrics in them if you look at a specific fabric you may be surprised- but when you stand back and look they work very well.
some people (see) colors differently- instead of trying to teach her to see colors the way you do maybe you could help her learn to balance the values.
when i'm going to work on a new bargello quilt i choose my fabrics- lay them out with a couple inches of each showing in the order i think they will go in then i take a picture- load it on the computer and print it off in gray scale- it makes it easy to immediately see if something is out of place or does not look right.

quiltingnonie

I totally understand what you are saying about your friend...my dear MIL was exactly the same way about color/fabric choices. Example: she made a quilt for our son with very attractive duck panels in browns, blues, greens and grey. But she used 4" BRIGHT mustard yellow sashing strips! We all have quilts from her, and we cherish and use them because she made them with love for us, but they aren't on prominent display in our homes.

seamstome

I wonder if she is color blind. She wears suits to work and always wears Jones New York so you buy the outfit all coordinated. Casually I see her in alot of blue and white or jeans and something. She did not pick the colors etc for her house, her hubby did.

I tried not to impose my picks on her except where it just clashed or where that FQ was definitely going to read dark not light in the quilt.

Starting simple with three colors or complementary would be a good start. The quilts that I have seen that are appealing which she picked are in fewer colors like 4P or 9P. Technically she does a good job of matching seams, being square and actual quilting.

Lori S

A simple first step is pick a focus fabric and then use the color registrations in the selvage to work with for coordinating fabrics. I have taught a few starters who just got lost in Colorland ... and this was very useful to them .
Another method is to take a Home dec magazine and ask which photo she likes the most ... identify the colors and scales and how the designer used them in what proportion. Maybe give her a subsription to a quilt magazine.
Just a note.. does he comment about how beautiful other quilters works are .... or does she really like what she picks out when the project is completed?
I do feel your pain ... and Ihave been where you are ... had a close friend that was ... challenged. She knows there is an issue because she asked for your help.

qbquilts

I recommend a book called "Color Magic for Quilters" by Ann Seely & Joyce Stewart. It very thoroughly explains the color wheel and the various color harmonies that work well together. It also talks about scale. ISBN: 0875969852. Here's an Amazon link to the book (for reference purposes only) - http://www.amazon.com/Color-Magic-Qu...0952798&sr=8-1