Tilkunviilaaja®

Grey is one of the most – if not the most – versatile neutral colours in quilting. It is a softer colour than black, and it will help your highlight colours stand out. In this post, I share practical tips about the use of grey in quilting using my own quilts and quilted items as examples. Grey represents neutrality, simplicity, peace, future-orientedness and logic. Grey is not an emotional colour, and it is associated with technology, industrial activity, control, professionalism and even with elegance. Not all greys are colourless – a pure mix of black and white. There are all shades, ranging from yellowish to purplish and brownish: And then there is the special brown-grey colour called taupe. Taupe is the colour that is just as brown as it is grey. The word “taupe” comes from the French word for mole whose fur is of that colour. It may be that quilters find taupe more interesting than other people because Japanese quilters use it abundantly and in very chic ways. They are maste...

My quilts do not feature a lot of yellow, but I often take advantage of its eye-catching character. Today’s colour tips for quilting center around yellow: what to watch out for and how to use yellow successfully in your quilts. Yellow is often associated with youth, hope, and joy. It is an optimistic, energetic colour and it is often used to draw attention to something. What to watch out for when using yellow? Many quilters consider yellow a difficult colour, and this is probably because yellow is such an intensive colour for the human eye. And at the same time, even the most saturated yellows look surprisingly close to white in value to the human eye. As a result, any yellows tend to blend into the white areas placed next to them, so it is difficult to achieve a good value contrast between yellow and white. Even so, yellow is not automatically the lightest-value fabric in the surface. For a long time, I did not understand this and thought that any yellow would be a “light”...

Today’s post concentrates on brown colour in quilts. It may not be the most exciting colour, but it can be very useful! You will get a tip or two on what to watch out for and many examples of how to use brown fabrics in your quilts with success. Brown is a colour in its own right, even though it is not one of the colours of the rainbow. One can also think of it as a very dark orange. In the CMYK colour model, brown is created by mixing yellow, magenta, and black. I remember the carboard palettes of watercolours at school: one got brown by mixing red, yellow and blue. The result was usually an ugly brown. And the water used for cleaning the brush became rather an unattractive shade of brown after one had dipped the brush in it a couple of times. Wikipedia mentions that both European and US polls reveal that brown is the people’s least popular favourite colour. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown ) What to watch out for when using brown Too much brown may make the quilt ...

Today’s post concentrates on turquoise colour in quilts. You will get a tip or two on what to watch out for and many examples of how to use the turquoise colour successfully. The name "turquoise" for the semi-precious stone and its colour comes from the French word "turquois," which means "Turkish". This refers to the stone’s trading origins. (Source: https://www.thefactsite.com/turquoise-facts/ ) Turquoise has an element of both blue and green, and thus it is a close relative to them both. The colour is often associated with inventiveness and creativity. What to beware when using turquoise? To many of us, turquoise brings tropical waters to mind. A bright turquoise together with other bright colours may make the quilt surface resemble a Hawaiian shirt. (Though this may be the quilter’s goal of course.) I planned to create a stunningly beautiful zipper pouch from a combination of turquoise and a lovely red, but the result stunned me in a different...