Orange Juice and Sunshine: New Fabrics

If lime is the new neutral, orange is the new pink. At least that's the thinking about fresh colors.

No matter how you feel about fashion and hot colors, they sneak into your work. Mostly because they look so cool together with the other colors of the day.

Orange comes and goes as a fashion color. It was in the 70s, anathama in the 80s, very bland in the early 90s and back big time after 2000. Say what you will about orange, no one is neutral about it. A lot of people are nervous about using orange.

But it always has a kick. It's visual orange juice.
We just got in the coolest line of orange pieces.

Of course any time we have one color, it needs to have some other colors  to dance with. The greens and the yellow are perfect.

Simple squares and strips become a woven-look wonder. And they feel like the orange juice and sunshine waiting for you on a perfect summer day.

Do you have a color you never use? See what happens when you stretch a little and work start with a color outside your palette. You'll never know until you try.

Absolutely Shocking: Lime, Orange and Pink as Backgrounds.

From Cristin at "Sew This Is My Life on Magpie Quilts

There was a saying about 10 years ago. Lime is the new neutral. Everyone sort of shook their heads and bought some lime fabric. And we discovered that very bright backgrounds make the other colors positively shine. Magpie quilts was saying that grey is the new neutral, but for this quilt I would argue that the neutral here is the green.

Does any of that matter? Don't be silly. All the colors are in it together. And it's hard sometimes to say which is the background and which is the pattern. I'm just saying when there's a lot of lime green around, the quilts are electric. 

From LollyQuiltz made by Carla

It's true for so many colors. If it's bright and fun with a white  background, imagine it with arrest me red. Bright colors just make other colors more excited and exciting.

For that matter any color you see as eye popping and outrageous probably makes for an astonishing background. Even if its a color you wouldn't usually use.

Orange Explains it All, DC Modern Quilt Guild

Orange is another electric color. Orange was so overdone in the 70's that it disappeared in the 80s. But you can't keep a good color down. It's back and it's beautiful.

From Connie at How to Hand Quilt and More

Hot pink is no shrinking violet either. Yet it makes this black and white cow completely eye 
catching.


As you pick out backgrounds, try at least one color you consider just too bright for contemplation. It may surprise you.

Colors in the Cracks

Color Wheel

We've been talking about basic colors. But anyone can tell you, that's not all there is. When we look at a color wheel, especially one colored by computer, we know there are a lot of colors that are not being shown there.




It's really easy at that point to glaze over and ask, "Why do we use a color wheel if it doesn't show us everything? What good is that?"
People forget that the color wheel isn't science. Or really just on it's own, art. It's a theory. It has points where it works and points where, as a theory it falls apart. But it does show us a lot of information about the relationships between colors.If we can get past the fact that it's not perfect, it becomes a perfectly useful tool.

When we see a range of colors, we need to imagine not just those colors but all the colors in the cracks between.
The Tertiary colors are the colors in between. If you're using cheap crayons, you can always tell, because they have 2 color names.
 Each secondary and primary color have a color to either side that's a mix between them.

 So orange has red orange, yellow orange,and orange.What do the colors in between give us? Incredibly rich colors that slide into each other.

Orange Explains it All

Here's some quilts that slide between yellow orange, orange, and red orange.

Modern Quilt Guild Block

This free block from the Modern Quilt Guild, We Love Quilts takes us all the way through that range.

Snake Charmer by Denyse Schmidt

Start thinking about the colors in between the cracks. They're rich, ripe and lovely!

Secondary Passions:Purple, Orange and Green

We've been talking about secondary colors, orange, purple and green.
Because they're mixed colors they blend much better than the primaries. They work and play well with others.They also work well with each other.

Round Robin Quilt

You'll probably find more people using two of the three, though.This round robin quilt from the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild features purple and green.

purple and orange quilt

This quilt is from Jennifer at That Girl that Quilt. The purples and oranges are almost singing together.

It takes a little more courage to mix all three.

Lorrie Cranor, improv quilt

We love this improv quilt from Lorrie Cranor. Purple, green and orange are electric colors together. Mix them up, blend them in. You may run with scissors, but they don't. They get along great.

Orange: Loving Colors You Hate

I love asking people about their favorite colors. I also love asking people if they have a color they hate.

Of course everyone's answer is different. But orange is often the color they like least.


Why is that? It's partially preference, and anyone who lived through the 70s might well be permanently put off burnt orange. I think it's simpler than that.

If you ask people what colors they like best they're likely to say either blue, or pink. Most people can wear some shade of either blue or pink and have done so their whole life. They're picking the colors they're used to wearing.
Not everyone can wear orange. Or should.

But we don't wear our quilts. We don't have to look good in them. Which means there's a world of color we've been avoiding, right outside our door.

From simplebeans.blogspot.com

But it does wake up a quilt! Orange is sort of like orange juice on a gray day. Everything after that is so much better. A mix of red and yellow, two big show offs, orange has real punch.

from trueup.net

It's great as a straight shade.

Add caption

It's electric when it's in different tones.

There is a day in every quilters life, when they look at the colors their quilting with and say, " I'm bored. I want something different. Orange might just be that for you. Grab some OJ and brighten things up.

Reach for the Sun: The Warmth of Yelllow

Color is more than the color wheel. The color wheel maps the relationships between colors. Some of us don't care about that at all. How does it make you feel? 

We have cliches about color. We feel blue, we're green with envy, we're having a purple day. We're red hot mad.

But past that, we all have our private feelings about color. We'll be exploring a number of colors and combinations.

by Deaux Petite Souris

When I was younger I used to call it my enemy color. It's not pretty on me. But now I know it's light and heat in my quilt. And right now those sound kind of good.It also can be just goodness. And it brightens everything it's near.

Modern Pickle Relish

Of course yellow comes in a range of shades. Once we stretch a bit, we're into yellow orange, or yellow green. How marvelous!

Black and Yellow Chevron

Notice how much our neutrals change the feeling. This yellow against black and grey feels more dramatic and less sunny. But I still love it.

Use this time to think about colors differently. Reach for a color you never use. It could become your next best friend