WARNING: This blarticle contains many questions, but few answers. If you have a low tolerance for uncertainty, stop reading. On the other hand—and there always is another hand with me—if you like to offer opinions, read on.

Color is so interesting. I love the fluidity of it, the way you never know what a piece of fabric will really look like until you put it next to another. Of course that also makes fabric selection more difficult. As a result, most quilters seem to worry about color more than any other single aspect of quiltmaking, and rightly so. After all, most of us have had the bitter experience of ripping out 2 patches in each of 35 blocks to replace them with another color, often one that's quite similar to the first. And if you're like me, you wonder why you're bothering while you're ripping, but you're usually glad you did afterward. And you know very well that if you hadn't ripped you would have wondered, every time you saw that quilt, if you should have. So I get it—I understand why we're so picky about color and will readily admit that I am the queen of pickiness in that arena. But I'm just not sure that I should be.

Some of my favorite quilts are scrap quilts and, although there are many controversial topics in quilting, I think that we can agree that a distinguishing feature of the genre is the use of many fabrics. (Of course, the exact number of fabrics required to officially transform a quilt into a scrap quilt seems to vary from competition to competition, but that's another column.) The factor that seems to distinguish a beautiful scrap quilt from an ugly one is the use of color.  Problems seem to occur when the maker thinks that she is required to use every available fabric in the quilt. We get better results with a variety of hues, shades and values within a given color or range of colors. So if my favorite quilts are scrap quilts, and part of my own personal definition requires the use of odd color combinations, then why am I so picky about color? One would think that I would be very comfortable with unusual color combinations, as in my "red" shirt quilt that includes everything from a gray and burgundy pinstripe to a scarlet and brown plaid. And actually I must be, because I have made lots of those quilts. Is it just about expectations? In a scrap quilt, do we recognize that there are a lot of different fabrics and a lot going on? And that the diversity adds to the interest? In a planned quilt, even one with 10 or 12 fabrics, do we rely more on pattern? I don't really know. (Opinions welcome).

When I was about 10, my father bought a car whose dashboard was a color that I now realize was teal. At the time, I said it was blue. My mother said it was green. As an adult I've often wondered if our actual perceptions were different—if I had been able to see the color through my mom's eyes, would the dashboard have actually appeared as a different color? Or did we see exactly the same color, but have different names for it? Recently I was reading an article about the way language affects thought*, and there at the top of page 5, it said (in a longer way) that if a language has no name for a particular color, speakers of that language are not easily able to distinguish that color. Well! Does that mean that other cultures could have colors that we don't have? I want them! Bring them on! The more the better! And since my mother was born in Nebraska and I was born in California, does that mean that there was a blue deficiency in the Nebraskan vernacular? Or maybe it was the green in Californian?

I sometimes give a lecture on color in which the main point is that everything goes with everything. And although I know from experience that that's true, I also know that sometimes one has to work a little harder at it than others. So maybe it doesn't matter what we call the color as long as we can convince it to play well with the others.

*http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=general&src=me

Comments

• 1. Amy (11 February 2011 at 11:28 p.m.)

  Would make a great gift for an OSU fan!
  
  

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