Five colour terms that matter in quilting
Deciding on the colours to use for your quilt is sometimes difficult. The first step to colour confidence is to be fluent enough in a few basic colour-related terms.
In this post, I share a few insights on words that we use when discussing colour. If they are new to you, this is a good starting point. And if you know the terms already, you may enjoy my examples!
The five basic colour-related terms that are most important for a quilter to know are
Quilters are often more concerned about making the right colour choices, and many tend to think about colour contrast. However, in a quilt, value contrast is almost always more important.
Because a human eye catches the differences between the lightness and darkness more easily than colour differences, a quilt design is usually more successful if there is proper value contrast.
The “Ace of Diamonds” quilt is a good example of the power of contrast. Its design is based on strategically placing dark, mid-value, and light fabrics. This quilt is based on the free Plaid-ish Quilt tutorial by Kitchen Table Quilting. If you want to sharpen your skills in contrast, the tutorial is a good exercise!
If there is no value contrast between the pieces of a quilt block, for example, the block pattern is not easy for the eye to distinguish, and a surface built of such blocks looks blurry.
You may of course want your creation to be of low contrast, or without a clear pattern. Here’s an example: my ”Progress” quilt from year 2014. The only proper contrast is between the center and the border.
Here you can see a piece of the quilt surface. There are lighter and darker areas, but the edges of the jigsaw puzzle pieces do not stand out, which was my conscious choice.
Sometimes there seems to be contrast between two fabrics - until one cuts them up and sews into a patchwork. This happened to me too often in my early days of quilting.
For example, I found an exciting idea to create a piece by weaving two fabric pieces together. I chose a softly patterned fabric and a fun fabric with black-and-white cows. The cow fabric looked much darker than the other fabric. But see what the result was:
The cows have too much white in them, and the other light-coloured fabric just blends into it. The woven pattern is barely noticeable.
It is often difficult to see if there is proper contrast between two multi-coloured fabrics, but looking at them as a monochrome image will help. I might have noticed the lack of contrast between these two fabrics if I’d looked at them in monochrome.
In this post, I share a few insights on words that we use when discussing colour. If they are new to you, this is a good starting point. And if you know the terms already, you may enjoy my examples!
The five basic colour-related terms that are most important for a quilter to know are
- Colour
- Saturation
- Value
- Contrast
- Achromatic colours.
1. Colour
Colour refers to the generic name: red, blue, yellow.
This image shows a playful array of colours:
I created the piece at a whim and turned it promptly into one side of a bag that I named “Rainbow Compass”.
2. Saturation
Saturation means how intensive we see a colour: whether it is strong or bright, or subdued or soft.
The blocks in the following image feature saturated colours: especially the purples are intense.
3. Value
Value refers to how dark or light we see a colour. In this image, for example, you can see one dark blue fabric and two lighter blue fabrics.
4. Contrast
Contrast means the difference between one colour and another.
Two types of contrast are interesting for a quilter: colour contrast and value contrast. Colour contrast is the difference in colour itself, and value contrast is the difference between the lightness/darkness.
Quilters are often more concerned about making the right colour choices, and many tend to think about colour contrast. However, in a quilt, value contrast is almost always more important.
Because a human eye catches the differences between the lightness and darkness more easily than colour differences, a quilt design is usually more successful if there is proper value contrast.
The “Ace of Diamonds” quilt is a good example of the power of contrast. Its design is based on strategically placing dark, mid-value, and light fabrics. This quilt is based on the free Plaid-ish Quilt tutorial by Kitchen Table Quilting. If you want to sharpen your skills in contrast, the tutorial is a good exercise!
For example, I found an exciting idea to create a piece by weaving two fabric pieces together. I chose a softly patterned fabric and a fun fabric with black-and-white cows. The cow fabric looked much darker than the other fabric. But see what the result was:
It is often difficult to see if there is proper contrast between two multi-coloured fabrics, but looking at them as a monochrome image will help. I might have noticed the lack of contrast between these two fabrics if I’d looked at them in monochrome.
5. Achromatic colours
Achromatic colours – black, white, and grey – have no colour. Quilters (and probably many other people as well) often refer to them as neutrals.
Neutrals are a great choice for a background because they allow real colours to stand out. Here is an example, a mini quilt (wall-hanging) that I created to celebrate Finland’s 100th birthday in 2017.
These five colour-related terms come up most often when we discuss colour in quilts. They are the most helpful words when explaining what is happening on the quilt surface – for example, why something doesn’t seem to be working like we imagined.
This was the first of the several posts in which I’ll share my experiences in colour in quilts. In the near future, you will be seeing many examples of successes and also of the ones what weren’t quite the winners I would have liked.
Neutrals are a great choice for a background because they allow real colours to stand out. Here is an example, a mini quilt (wall-hanging) that I created to celebrate Finland’s 100th birthday in 2017.
This was the first of the several posts in which I’ll share my experiences in colour in quilts. In the near future, you will be seeing many examples of successes and also of the ones what weren’t quite the winners I would have liked.
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