Matchy Matchy: When to Match Colors, When to Blend Colors, When to Contrast Colors

Quilt by Karen Woodruff

Sometimes you hear the phrase "Matchy, Matchy, when we're describing color choices. It brings us to the question, "How important is it to match colors exactly? What does that do for our design?"

Like most design decisions, it comes down to what you want your design choice to do. There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. Or makes it sew.
It comes down to materials and visual choices. There are two items we're talking about at the moment: fabric and thread.
Materials:
We've talked about fabric that's made to match. There are three ways to think about matching colors. We can  match as closely as we can, pick several choices that blend with each other but are not identical, 
Contrast strongly with a different color, print size, or style. These choices are neither right or wrong. But they do make a statement. 
 Match as closely as we can. 

This is best only when we really can match. If it's close, it often doesn't win a cigar. It can look very awkward. If you can match your colors pretty exactly, it gives a smoother quieter feel to you design.

Pick several choices that blend with each other but are not identical.

Sue Makinen's quilt doesn't match colors but it blends them beautifully.

This is the answer to something that only comes close. If you have a range of 3-4 colors that blend it looks like an intentional choice. And it gives a quilt a lovely scrappy feel.
Contrast strongly with a different color, print size, or style

Bright colors don't need to match. They contrast.

If we really can't match it, don't. Pick a fabric that contrasts strongly with the others. Complementary colors work very well for this. Or pick something that is much lighter, darker, stronger, bigger, smaller, or in some way different. It will shine out like a diamond.
Threads:
Piecing:

• Choosing thread for piecing is about neutrality. What color can you find that sort of blends with everything you're using. Gray, white, black and beige are really good things to start with. If you're ironing your blocks with the seams turned to the dark side, you, me and God are the only ones who will know. And God and I will be silent.
• Quilting:

  

  From Wendy Shepherd at Ivory Spring

  
  If you feel confident about your quilting skills, nothing is as showy as a contrasting color quilt thread. It's pretty.

  

  From Wendy Shepherd at Ivory Spring

  Of course if you're a little less sure of yourself, a thread that matches will be more forgiving of uneven work or small boo boos.

When we're matching thread,we want to go one shade darker than you're color. Thread looks darker than it is on the spool just because there's more of it in a chunk. Once it's a single thread, it will look slightly lighter.

Quilting by machine always shows the thread color more because the whole stitch shows on both sides. A hand stitch shows in stitches in and out with the running stitch. It is visually less obvious and makes more of a dimple across the surface than a line.

As we said, there's no right or wrong way. But it helps if your choices are intentional. Because it gives you much more control over how your quilt looks.

Black backgrounds: As Bright As it Gets

McCalls Night Light Pattern

We've been talking about backgrounds for a while. Most quilts use muslin cream or white fabric for the background. But what happens if you don't?

Dear Jane Quilt (Civil War Reproduction Fabrics) 

Michel Galan France

Let's look at two Dear Jane Quilts. These are exactly the same paper pieced designs in two different color ranges. This is the quilt made with civil war replicas.

Dear Jane with brights and blacks by Chantal Guyon

This is the quilt with a black background. 

Do I now have your attention?

Quilt made from Laurel Burch Fabric

Most people think of black as funereal and depressing. It may be true about black dresses, but it's not true with quilts. Any time you want your colors to shine, bring on the black.

Amish Quilt From Diary of a Smart Chick

It's not a new idea either. This Amish star is a pre-1940s  quilt. The Amish quilts of that time often featured black backgrounds. The colors positively glow against the black. They knew the value of bright color against deep black.

Albert Hoffman's Orbit by Maria Shell at Tales of a Stitcher

Even thread work glows against a black background. The only color on this awesome stitching is the thread itself. The denser the stitching, the deeper the color.

Meredith's bright and black quilt from Girls in the Garden

 Actually that's what makes a black background so effective. Most exciting art celebrates contrast in some way. You can have contrast in colors, or in print sizes, or in value, the darkness or lightness of a color. Nothing is darker than black. So it contrasts everything around it, making even duller colors shine.

So, don't be afraid of the dark. The next time you want to make a knock-your-eyes our quilt, get out the black fabric and expect to be blown away

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.

Black and White and Red All Over: Modern Quilts with Snap

Black, red and white heart quilt

Color makes the quilt. We choose our patterns and we execute our stitchery, but what we take in first is the color. And it's great when your colors say"Wow". Particularly when they say it backwards.

Modern Red, white and black qult

Modern quilting celebrates streamed down patterns and bold statements. And nothing is as bold as red, black and white.
Why? Because it's the most dramatic color combination out there. It's the diva of  color combinations.Black and white are direct opposites  and red is as bold as courage or hearts.
One of the fun things about fabric line  collections is that they'll print the same fabric in different ways.
Here's a great run of red, white and black fabric.

It doesn't hurt that its a great print. But the contrast between the black and white is really exciting.

Another print of a different size gives it a different kind of contrast.

And add something with red in it...

You see what I mean.

Of course a great combination is something that's timeless. This quilt called Heart and Hat is over a hundred years old. And still fabulous!

Pick some white, black and red fabric and make a statement that is bold as you are. We've got a shelf of it waiting for you at Threadbenders

Here are some amazing fabrics that