Monday, February 15, 2016

Color Play for Quilters-Final Day of Hop



Color Play for Quilters


Welcome back to the final day of "Craftsy Sweetens Up My Quilting Life!" blog hop. I hope you've gained useful knowledge about classes and products, entered Craftsy's big Giveaway, and the other giveaways sponsored by our own bloggers. Check below for more information.

Sandra from mmm! quilts and I are wrapping up today, but the Giveaways will remain open for another week. All class discounts remain in effect one week from posting so take advantage of them soon! The entire blog schedule can be found here.




My first encounter with Color Play by Joen Wolfrom was while searching for books on color theory. The book reviews were outstanding, and it stayed on my radar.

Imagine my delight finding the book offered as a class taught by the author herself at Craftsy! Plus, the book I was after was a free download with the class--a win/win!


 Personal Insights
  • Comfortable speaker with extensive knowledge
  • Lecture intensive with strong visual aids
  • Heavy use of hand dyed fabrics lending itself well to both traditional and art quilters
  • Materials list supports the class well
  • Over 4 hours of instruction
  • Excellent question and answer portion relevant to the class
  • Most comprehensive course in color theory I have seen to date




"Do what you see. Not what you know."

Many of us struggle with picking out colors for a project, and to a large degree she teaches us why. She stresses the value of experimenting with colors in the form of acrylic paints creating your own samples. Blending colors and working with a color wheel was not new to me, yet she took me beyond what I'd ever done before. I had to learn how to see colors all over again, and by doing so I could use them to my advantage.



Luminosity

By far, the most interesting thing I learned was creating luminosity within a quilt. Luminosity refers to an area of light or glowing, and Wolfrom explains how she found it by mistake. Even so, she stopped to figure out why it happened so she would be able to recreate it. 




 Practical Application




Let's face it. Classes don't do any good unless you can use what you've learned. That might be the one downfall with taking a live class. One, it's hard to get your questions answered, and two, we forget things once we've gotten home. That doesn't happen when you can go back and repeat the segment for a brush up. 

I want to briefly share how the class has changed the way I look at fabric. This is a FQ bundle of Tokyo Train Ride by Sarah Watts. I've been saving it for something special, but nothing jumped out at me. I wanted to figure out why.

Normally I would lay my fabric out so I could stand back and take a good look at it. If I thought it needed something more, I'd throw some more colors down with it like in the first picture on the left. This fabric collection was leaving me stumped, so following Wolfrom's instruction I brought in a color wheel to see where most of the fabric were. I believe it was a double-complementary scheme. (middle picture above)


Building on Wolfrom's examples of adding a variety of values, I continued to add and subtract more fabrics. Another 'problem' I found with this bundle, and is often the case when we buy a single line of fabric, nearly all the the fabrics were the same scale. I tossed in dots in a variety of scales, and some micro prints. The last photo bottom right shows you what I wound up with. There's a balance between the lights, mediums, darks, and in scale finally. It's still a double-complementary color scheme, but a bit more balanced too. We shall see how this one works.


Someone who has made a quilt, and couldn't figure out what was wrong with the colors


Someone who wants to know how a color wheel works, and how it can make her much more successful at choosing fabrics

Someone who is ready to go beyond constructing from a kit

Someone who wants to delve deeply into color theory

How about YOU?





Buy Color Play for Quilters this week for 50% off its regular price. While visiting Craftsy, sign up for the chance to win one of two free classes, or the grand prize of a quilt kit, and fabric bundles. 





The Giveaway entry to Craftsy can be found both here and on each post throughout the hop. One entry per person. Enter until Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 11:59 MST. Winners will be announced February 22.


Hope you had as much fun hopping as we have!


Come on, Doxie girls.
Let's go sew.

14 comments:

Sandra Walker said...

Wow, we think alike in many ways! I love your heart saying. :-) I have this book, one of the first I bought when I took a Colour Wheel Basics class years ago with an extremely talented quilter. This was recommended. That last selection of fabrics--the lime, or is it chartreuse, just popped when I first looked at it. So I think you've got it, as the eye is drawn to the light. So much fun hopping with you and hope you have kicked the sickness right on out of your house. Now, let's go SEW Doxie Girls, amen!

Stitchin At Home said...

I can see where you would love this class and have added it to my wish list. I think you got it with your fabric pull, I like how it all comes together. Your hand dyed fabrics are going to be fun to play with.

Vicki in MN said...

Great review of the class! It's always so much fun to play aroud with different colors and scale of prints. I am definitely not afraid to go outside of a line of fabric to get the look I want! I love your final pick :-)

Tish Stemple said...

Julie, I'll be honest, this class would have probably never been one I would have thought about, but now I really want to take it. I love playing around with fabrics and mixing and matching patterns and values. Thanks for the great review :)

Unknown said...

I love the idea of a color class. Can I ask a question, it says one entry per person, I've been entering on each blog all week, will that be a problem?

Jayne said...

Picking fabric has always been a struggle for me, picking color...YIKES! What a great post and I will certainly put this on my list! Love your conversation heart...one I can relate too!

Julie said...

Jennie, you came across as a no-reply blogger so I hope you find this here. I've lost your email from previously when I cleaned my inbox this weekend.

Craftsy is set up that you get one entry. No matter how many times you've entered, it only actually accepts one. This is the message they shared with us. So, no problem at all, but sadly just the one entry. It's been the same for us.

Julie

Julie said...

Thanks,Jayne. I would call myself more a 'seat of the pants' type fabric picker up until now. It's hard to go back to looking at it without thinking in terms of the color wheel. She will most definitely change how you think about colors.

Preeti said...

Dyeing to be Yours!!! That was cute and funny.
Thank you for the in depth review of the class, Julie. This was terrific. There have been times when I have bought a FQ bundle and then hated some of the fabrics. This class would be really helpful to mix and match fabrics from our stash.
http://sewpreetiquilts.blogspot.com

helenjean@midgetgemquilts said...

Wow Julie if ever s book was written for a particular person , then this book was written especially for you ! A great review and a great blog hop

Anonymous said...

GREAT HOP+REVIEW! THANKS SO MUCH FOR SHARING!
msstitcher1214@gmail.com

Unknown said...

Thank you Julie. It's been a fun hop.

Lisa J. said...

Great post Julie. You have definitely jumped into colour. It's nice to see what you have learned.

Jennifer Fulton Inquiring Quilter said...

Great review and an excellent example of how you applied the class to quilting. Good job!