Color Harmony for Quilts: A Quiltmaker's Guide to Exploring Color

by Weeks Ringle, Bill Kerr

The key element in putting a quilt design together is colour, yet many people do not have a good grasp of colour theory - from what colours best complement others to what type of mood each colour evokes. Quilting expert Barbara Albright leads readers through a clear explanation of colour theory and how it relates to quilting, complete with tips on how to combine the right colours to get the look you want. From there, she presents 15 colour adjectives chosen to represent different moods - whether dynamic, romantic or natural - and illustrates each with two actual quilt patterns that best illustrate each colour concept, along with 8 colour variations for each quilt. Covering the historical relevance as well as the patterns and techniques used for each quilt, Wright illustrates how variations in colour, size and placement affect the mood of the finished piece.

Genres: Quilting

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 2, 2002

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book did not limit good color schemes to those that were complementary or analogous, etc., but added in other colors, shades and values that worked and made for very interesting color schemes. Their examples went from Subtle to Exotic and were illustrated with white dots on a color wheel that included shades and values and on a gray scale. Some palettes were one value with multiple hues and others are mixed values and mixed hues. Page 62, I'm Blooming Again, uses every hue of color and dark value greens as the field behind the darker colored floors, light value greens behind the lighter flowers. It would be worth studying again before I complete my flower wall hangings.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book for quilters (and I suppose other people who deal with color) who want to get beyond discussions of the color wheel, complementary colors, related colors, and split complementary...etc. A multitude of quilts are shown with artist statement and author analysis, then a few at the end with only the artist statement. Would make for a good teaching tool to use the end as exercises to see how much from the first section could be applied.

I appreciated the premise that instead of looking for predefined color combinations, we should look at what a color combination accomplishes and judge by how that furthers the idea of the quilt. (While I can appreciate all the authors' points about the big idea, I find it hard to create that way. Worth pursuing.) I am not convinced that color alone established the mood they ascribed to a quilt (and I am not sure they would claim it does either, though sometimes it sounded that way). Two in particular (Cosmopolitan and Ethereal) needed shapes in addition to color.


They do use a color wheel to show the range of hue and value in the quilts they discuss. And especially helpful is the graph showing proportions of colors along with the swatches of the colors to show how proportion affects the look. Another helpful feature is showing the color palette on a different traditional quilt design and varying it by adding and subtracting hues and values and discussing the changed effects. I would have appreciated if they had kept the design more constant in this part so that I could register more the color changes, though I assume they were trying to show each color change to its best effect.

And finally they suggest exercises to become more conscious of color, exercises for individuals and groups. Some of the exercises could be interesting guild meeting programs (with a little adaptation)

[Lori French · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting to read through, but not a book I need to own.