How Do You Rate Your Color Sense?
 

Sometimes when I am auditioning fabric for a new project, I think it looks great.....until I start sewing and then I wonder if other people will say to themselves, "those don't go together".

How often do you say "not everyone is going to like this"? On a scale from 1 to 10, how high do you put your choices?
Of course I know that there are no quilting police, but I was just wondering.

I am pretty confident in my sense of color and selecting fabrics. But much LESS confident in my ability to piece and quilt it!!!

Sometimes I doubt my color sense even when other quilter's say my color selection is excellent. I keep fabric up on the design wall reviewing it over and over again until I am sure the fabric will work.

I know I need help with color. But sometimes that has to do with the lighting. It would always upset me home and find the fabric looked totally different to me. So I try and take my daughter to help pick out fabric.

I'm very confident in my color sense. I don't think I've ever had a quilt that I later thought was the wrong color choices.

I never doubt my color choices. However, that doesn't mean everyone else will like them, we all have different tastes.

I do best when I pull colours from a print, photo or other palette.

I love pinterest for finding different colour combinations.

My son wants a red, black and white quilt. That is easy, I have been collecting prints for a year now. My challenge is deciding on the pattern and cutting up the fabric.

Back in the 1980's I made a Quilt in a Day Trip Around the World quilt. It was peach and green (very 80's colours), one of the greens is too dark. It has bugged me ever since, but not enough to take it apart and change it out, especially 30 years later.

I love primary colours for flannel and denim rag quilts. I do not worry about the colours for them.

I normally feel comfortable with my color choices. The only time I have second guessed is in a Mystery quilt, then although I like my colors if I had been aware of the pattern may have used them differently. Usually if you lay all of your colors down and you are happy with them you will be happy with your quilt

I don't think I have much color sense. I love scrappy and when I do something that isn't scrappy, I have a difficult time finding 'coordinating' fabrics. Just not my thing. Plus, I mostly do not care what anyone thinks. I just have fun and that is my main goal in quilting...to make it an enjoyable hobby and not one to please others. If my projects come out great and others like them, it is a double bonus! :-)

Like others, I am quite confident of my color choices but when in doubt I take a digital photograph of what I am doing. A digital image frequently allows me to step back and objectively look at my hesitancy and see the totality of the project and that allows me to either approve my color choice or move to another fabric.

I'm very confident about the colors I choose. Probably because I don't care if anyone else likes my quilts.

GBATT = getting better all the time

I am not confident at all of my color sense. I have a couple books on the subject that have helped, but I usually pick out a fabric with lots of colors that I like, then use that to select other fabrics. Sometimes I don't even use the original fabric in the quilt, just use it for color selection.

I just look outside and see the colors of Mother Nature and I'm good. Sometimes the different hues throw me off.

I do pretty good picking colors. I never follow a color wheel. If I like something together, I use it.

I'm kind of "into" the matchy thing, so I think my quilts are pretty successful color-wise. I get into trouble when I start mixing scrappy, odd colors together.

I feel good about my color sense although of course we are all always improving.

An exercise I found quite helpful was to make a scrap quilt with a number of HST that were light/dark, done completely at random. I used some of my fabrics, some from old clothes and some from another quilter so the palette was larger than just what I typically use. I found myself analysing (but no changing!) each pair, looking at value, hue, color, warm/cool and observing what worked and what didn't. Even the pairs that didn't work well mostly played well in the final quilt.

I have no confidence in color selection of fabric. I stew and stew about it, but my quilts usually turn out looking good. I am very fond of two color quilts or quilts with many shades of the same color. Those I am confident of...not so much anything else.

Dina

I don't know on a scale how high I would go but I do have a little trick that might be useful to some. I am a retired home dog groomer specializing in hand stripping West Highland Whites and Cairns. Did you ever wonder why groomers have large wall mirrors in their grooming rooms? Looking at the dog is not enough to tell if your on the right track. Standing back, looking into the mirror at the dog gives you a different perspective. I do that with fabric. It works.

I'm still "working" on color choices. It's not that I'm worried about what others may think but I just don't feel confident with color, although getting better. I had to laugh, one day in my LQS I was asking the owner for color ideas and she was trying to encourage me to make my own choices. She said to me, did anyone help you get dressed today, because you look pretty darn good. We had a good laugh about that. Anyway, I have also discovered what Basketman said and I have started taking pictures of my color choices in the stores when I'm having trouble deciding. It really helps.

I'm very confident in my color choices. One thing that I think people get hung up on is trying to perfectly "match" colors. It's less frustrating to find something that "blends well" rather than trying to match. Not all fabrics have to be "pretty" If you throw a few plain or drab ones in, it makes the others shine more. :)

I had a bad color choice experience with a mystery quilt and have decided not to do any more of them.

I'd say, on a 1-10 scale, I'm confident at about an 8.

Don't ask me to rate my math skills.

I only care about who will like my quilt color choices if I'm making it for them, because if someone were gifting me with one, I'd hope they'd consider my tastes.

I spend weeks tweaking a group of fabrics until they feel right to me. I never use precuts as a group because they are too matchy for me. Similarly, I find most random scrap quilts to be too jarring and busy. My chance of making a Bonnie Hunter quilt is zero. The word "pop" is not on my radar. It's a visceral reaction, I think. The colors need to "sing." Sometimes I am going for a 2-color scheme and fine-tune the group, moving fabrics in and out, adding occasional edgy ones, until they begin to vibrate. Sometimes I am going for a soft glow.. My piecing is pretty simple and my quilting very basic. They have to be, given all the time I spend on the front end. :).

Hugs,
Charlotte

I like most colors. Sometimes I see a quilt and think "what were they thinking?" I will show it to my husband and he will say "whats wrong with that? I like it." He will pick out fabric, bring it to me and I think its ugly. So buy and make what you like. Some will hate it and some will think it's gorgeous. He wants a black and white quilt. I said too boring so am making a pineapple quilt with Gayleen Fitzgeralds pineapple ruler in black and white with red in the center. I now think I should have left out the red since it's for him.

Mine is good. I know what I like, I know what I don't like, and life is too short to try to make something I don't like work.

One of the reasons I have EQ--I can scan fabrics to see how they look in the design before making the first cut.

I used to think I was good with colors, until I started quilting! It's like herding cats - you get most of them together, then one or two run for it! After a few that I just didn't like, I started having my husband take a second look for me. Turns out his color sense is much better than mine, so if I'm hesitating over a color, I'll usually use what he picked out.

as long as I like the colors, I don't care what anyone else likes or thinks

I'm getting better with my color sense so I'm starting to get braver.

I've been a digital scrapbooker for years. This helped me a TON. Scrapbooking has much less investment (time wise) involved in the finished product so it's been a wonderful medium to develop my color expression. Art journaling would be a great way to 'practice' too. In a way I've found that working in a couple different art mediums really strengthens both. I would encourage you to experiment in ways that help you expand and develop.

It's always refreshing to see by comments that others feel as you do. I'm confident but realize my choices aren't going to be appealing to everyone, and I'm not planning to do a mystery quilt because pattern consideration is a part of my color choice. I admire others scrappy quilts, but don't want to make one-viewing from different distances is an important part of my process too.

I'm very sure of what I like and don't like. I don't think this is quite the same thing as a good color sense. I'm sure there are many combinations of colors I don't think of trying. That's what's so great about seeing other people's quilts. You learn something with every one you see.

I think I'm ok with choosing colours my main problem is value. Too often I don't have enough contrast in the value so I am going to have to work on that.

Color is a challenge to me. I spend a lot of time auditioning fabrics. The color wheel helps with hue but to get the right saturation/chroma and or value/luminosity is where I have to work at it. I also have to be careful if there is too large of a print to know what it is going to look like in smaller pieces that I will be using in a quilt. My son is an art teacher and artist. He did not get his talent from me!

I sew what I like. I don't worry about whether others will think it is a good color choice or not. If I am making something for someone else I usually ask what colors they like and try to stick with that.

I am color challenged.

I don't rate my color sense very high, but as long as I stick to scrappy quilts I'm usually OK with how they look when finished. I've tried to use a color wheel to help, but I usually wind up more confused and frustrated.

I rarely ask for opinions when it comes to my fabric choices, borders or binding.

I find a reducing glass gives a pretty good indication.