About Me

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

BETTER THAN CRAYONS

I'm so excited to be enrolled in Sharon Boggon's online course for encrusted crazy quilting. I'm off to a slow start, but I've had too much fun playing with my first week's homework. I never really thought much about color palettes, never thought I had a problem pulling together pleasing combinations. It's been something that always came easy to me, and creating palettes
(real and now otherwise!) has become one of my favorite things to do. In fact, you don't want to shop with me if it involves selecting colors for anything unless you're willing to spend hours of
blissful abandon trying this, that and the other together, then stress with me while I try to
choose which combos I like best. Strangers have made this mistake asking my opinion about a
tie selection or putting some yarns together or... You get the idea. I do spend double duty in
hardware stores playing with paint chips or browsing for "stuff" I could use in crafting.

I have several excellent books on color theory, which I have read and enjoyed at an academic level, but truly much of what is suggested comes automatically to me without my having to know the why of it. This is not to say that my palettes are always perfect. They are pleasing to me, which is enough, but I'm frequently guilty of sticking with favorite colors. Well, I love them, and they're soooo comfortable. It's elementary to know that a print fabric will yield all the colors necessary; duh-uh, we can even follow the dots printed in color on the selvedge of some fabrics. To marry two or more solids that don't seem quite right, put them with a multi that includes those colors to "verify" compatibility. Of course there are proportions to consider, but that's another subject.

To me it's a given that nature is our best palette source, and what we can't see with our own eyes we can see in photographs or through the macro lenses of National Geographic photographers. This brings me to Sharon B's first lesson . Among her many useful suggestions for discovering and recording colors was a link to an online color generator . I must confess, I had so much fun playing with this utility, I put off doing my homework! I googled images.I used my own. I just had a ball. However, not all the time was wasted. I did perform some experiments related to my course project, and as you'll see, I got my homework done!






Here are two prints I selected to begin the palette for my patchwork block. Anyone who's bought fabric or fiber online knows, albeit forewarned, is that virtual color is not always accurate. The actual teal of these fabrics is greener than shown.








These are my final fabric auditions pulled from my stash to complement the basic prints. Photos may not show the variance in materials, sheens, textures, etc. Most are silks; there is some handpainted velvet. As usual, I get carried away by the many possibilities and am left with the
almost painful task of elimination.



Before I reveal my end result, I have to tell you about my experiments. In the first one I used the Palette Generator and got a result you can see at:
http://jrm.cc/color-palette-generator/?image=images%2Fscan0006.jpg&steps=3

Next I created the palette from memory as best I could using my Paintbox accessory. Then I inserted the image of my fabrics into Paintbox and used the eyedropper tool to pull colors to create a virtual palette. Scroll down to see remaining pix.

Memory and Virtual Palettes


Palette from Memory, originally uploaded by Fiberdabbler.

I always thought I had good color memory, but I was thwarted in my attempt to come up with a visual representation of the colors in my head by the limitations of my paintbox program. I do have to say my
memory generated custom colors are truer to the colors of the actual fabrics.
Interesting experiment.



Virtual palette, originally uploaded by Fiberdabbler.

I used the eyedropper feature of my paintbox program to pick up colors in the two swatches. Although I show the closest to the actual dominant color, it's really based on the best representation I could do with my scanning and photo programs. The actual color is a decidely greener teal than shown.

UP OR DOWN?


block up, originally uploaded by Fiberdabbler.

This was the directional layout I intended as I worked. It's fine, but I had to play some more.




block down, originally uploaded by Fiberdabbler.

Maybe I like it better upside down. I
played around with the rotation tool in my photo program to see how it would look. That was fun, too. Meanwhile the block hangs on my design wall for further contemplation while
I gather fibers and embellishment goodies for the next steps.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Diamond Patch Sweater


Diamond Patch Sweater, originally uploaded by Fiberdabbler.

Modular knit design by Jill Vosberg at Just One More Row.
The yarn is a cotton tweed called Pasticcio from Elann.com's Endless Summer Collection. The pattern offers 2 methods of construction with multiple sizing. I added an extra row of diamonds to get a tunic length, and I upsized slightly by changing the guage of my basic diamond.

Detail of Diamond Patch


Detail of Diamond Patch, originally uploaded by Fiberdabbler.

Diamond Detail


Diamond Detail, originally uploaded by Fiberdabbler.