Purple
 

Okay, I have finally accepted part of my problem with fabric selection. It is that I really don't like lots of colors. I like purple, blue, white, and earth tones. That is just about it. I just don't like other colors. I have been playing with the color wheel, reading about fabric selection, googling "how to select fabric for quilts," etc. But what it boils down to is that if it is a quilt for me, I prefer purple.

I should have know this already, as when I look in my clothes closet, purple and blue are the two colors I have lots of. (And purple is not that easy to find in clothes....)

Anyway, here is my latest purple quilt. It is a Rail Fence in three shades of purple. If you look around my sewing room, and even at my stash, you see lots of purple. How come it took me so long to figure this out.

Does anyone else have one color that just seems to be "their" color??

Dina

Yep, you are a purple lady...even your ironing board cover. I think I am a red/yellow kind of person. But then other colors sneak in there too.

Oh, you do have lots of purple in that stash on your shelves!! I am getting ready to FMQ a large black and purple quilt myself, although I don't choose huge amounts of purple. I do have favorite colors that I always love the most, yet I so love COLOR that I like to work with all colors. And my clothes closet always has lots of the same color tones, so I guess I like to wear the same colors nearly all the time. But, if it makes you smile, go for it!!

I have alot of BLUE and im not a huge fan of blue.. Guess there were more blue fabs with interesting designs on them then anything else that caught my eye... Im a scrappy kinda gal.. So i have a mish mash of colors.. I even like the 'uglies'.... they add character..



LOVE the purple rail fence...

I tend to buy colors I like too. I love your rail fence! The first quilt I made was a rail fence. I used the same color purples that you did!

Love the purple ironing board cover and the little purple basket as well as that beautiful quilt. For quilting it seems the print attracts me more than the color, or at least that's what I THINK attracts me, though often I find the pattern in other colors and prefer it in the one that grabbed my eye.

Beautiful quilt. You got me to thinking and I realized I lean more towards pink and green quilts but no clothes of those colors.
Strange.....

I love all colors and have a hard time not buying any bright beautiful colored fabric. I now have a wide rang of colors to work with.

I love green - everytime I pick colors I always have green in it. Its just my favorite - and I love blues and greens together and purple- green too. The only problem I have is when I make quilts for others and they like different colors than I do - I think its normal to love certain colors.

My favorite color was turquoise but now I just love purple & cobalt blue also. They say that as you get older you like purple more! Anyway- as far as quilts that really catch my eye are the BRIGHT ones in most colors. I have always liked bright clothes as well. Maybe I'm just a gaudy old lady!! :)

My MIL is nuts about purple too! Ok, obsessive is a better word. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING in her apartment is some shade of purple except for the carpet which would be purple if the complex would let her change it. She is so obsessed with it that I don't bother making her anything that isn't purple. She requested an armchair caddy and I found this beautiful fabric from Moda that had small purple roses on it and it was on a sage green background. She won't even put it in her living room, which is where she wanted one for, because it doesn't purple enough!

Everyone has their favorite colors to work with...and to collect. Mine is green, with red second, blue third, next gold, brown, black, purple. The only color I have little of is pink. I really like all colors, though mostly more muted, not real bright colors, unless they are for kids quilts.

I'm a purple lady too - I wear more purple than any other colour, by a long way, as you'd see if you looked in my wardrobe or jewellery box. But -I don't use it for decor, where I tend to go for neutrals, pinky terracotta or blue, and I realised recently that I've never made a purple quilt! I often choose colours I haven't worked with before, or challenge myself by choosing colours I'm not so comfortable with - my avatar is a case in point. Brown and an orange-based red? Probably among my most-avoided colours! But very effective in this quilt, which a friend took home with her last week because it does reflect her tastes.

I always seem to manage to slip some blue fabric somewhere in most of my quilts. My daughter is purple and she would absolutely adore your house.

I have lots of earth tones and blue and yellow

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.

Your purple quilt is beautiful - love the purple ironing board cover - I love teals -aqua & blacks

I have a love of black pants & black shell tops - that way I can add a bright color to the outfit

Black pants - really because I am 5' 9" tall & long legs - it is hard to find extra long pants & usually when I do they are black.
Oh well

There is never enough purple in the world, for me. Love your quilt. I too try to stretch my color choices, but find I'm always drawn back to purples.

I'm feeling it.

Oh, I love your quilt!! You have excellent taste!!

I just don't know if I am going to continue trying to appreciate other colors or stick with what I know I like, at least for now. I've only been quilting 2 years. I tend to buy fabric I like, then worry about creating the quilt later. May need to rethink that, eventually. )

Dina

There is nothing wrong with knowing what you like. However, I think it is also important to broaden ones horizon. I bet those other colors are feeling rather left out in your stash. lol Lots of purple prints have other colors in them - you may add by using prints.

Yes you do like purple, on the shelves, ironingboard and in the quilt! I like a lot of colors....

i know what you mean. While I do like all kinds of colors - the ones that I don't care for hardly are browns, earthtones, rusts....I want to make a quilt for a friend and those are the colors she likes the most - her least favorite color: blue.....my favorite color: blue..sigh....

Yes, understanding color theory has helped me to broaden my horizons w/ my decorating and quilting.

I always tell people my favorite color is green, but if you look in my closet, it's clearly purple. But when it comes to quilts, I seem to be stuck on a browns-and-reds-theme.

The reason I like kits/colorways is because someone else has already done the thinking of decing what goes with what!

I love red and natural, you will allways find a touch of red in my quilts.

I love your quilts. I love green. I have a lot of green in my stash. Very rarely do I make a quilt with green as the focus. Hummm, wonder why?

Dina your quilt is very nice. I do understand where deemail is coming from, and she is sew right.
Great purple quilt Kathdavis from Missouri. I just love purple and green together.

I make quilts for other people ,with color and topics that they like, in fact I don't even have a quilt that I have made for myself. If I was to make one for myself it would probably be a scrappy quilt .Because in my scraps stash is probably pieces of matterial that I used in other quilts so I can remember all thequilts too.

When I make quilts for people I know, I always use the colors that they pick to wear. One Christmas I didn't!t even wrap my nieces' quilts separately, just put them in a box and figured they would sort it out. LOL, talk about lazy. Anyway, they quickly chose the "right" quilts.

I love it!! I love your purple. I have more blue than any other color but have been working on building my stash with other colors. So I am finally widening my horizons along with multiplying my color palette!!

My wife and I both like teal/aqua/turquoise. We have lots of it in our stash. Neither of us is really a pink person, but pink is second. I don't understand it, but that's the way it is.

Darren

I used to LOVE purple (from light to dark), but have moved on to blacks and white. When I do my favs. Blacks and Whites, I will slip a BRIGHT color into it (just one and only in one spot). Your quilt is lovely - like the ironing borard cover too

purple is my FAVORITE color. Yellow my least fovorite so if someone want yellow I have to push myself to use it! I love the marbled fabrics that are available now. Very nice quilt you have there! The first quilt that I made for myself was a purple Tennessee Waltz and then I put Elvis in the border cornerstones. He is my all time favorite singer

I'd say you do like purple! Your quilt is beautiful and the colors you chose work very well together. ;) My favorite color is red but haven't done a quilt in it yet. Hmmmm...maybe that should be my next project. :thumbup:

I am very impressed with how neat and organized your sewing room is!

WOW! great colors and even greater quilt. I love purple. However, I also love pink, red, green and orange. Not usually at the same time, but, who knows? It may be out there for me. I am mostly drawn to pattern/print. I am a bright plaid person. But I really love the batiks also. It reminds me of the tie-dyed fabrics of my youth. (OK, I know I just gave away my age, but we have no secrets from our quilting sisters, right?) The purples in your quilt are so great. I am making a rail fence quilt in pink/green/white plaid w/ pink batik and green w/pink dots. Sounds ugly when I write it down but, it looks nice. I will post pics later.

I try not to limit my color choices, but, if it is green, I buy it. I will buy fabric with with browns, whites, yellow, etc. to blend with my greens.

I guess I like em all.