Garden Inspiration

What inspires your color choices? One thing that inspires me is my garden. (Yes, I need to clean and mulch it, but one thing at a time! The Shop Hop was only a week ago. I'm still cleaning house!) I have tried to stick to only a couple of colors, but I just can't. I go to the store and see all those beautiful colors and my will power collapses. I have all the colors I love, which is EVERY color! Color inspires me. Pink and orange? That's okay with me! Red with purple?Wonderful!  But there is a little color "trick" that your brain plays on you and it can make a difference in your color choices for quilting.

Look at the roses above. What color would you say these roses are. If you said red, you are correct. If you said pink, you are still correct. They grow on the same bush. There are two colors, right? The older rose has faded to a pink and the fresher one is more red. Aren't they beautiful together? You might notice that you see a little pink in the highlights of the red rose and a little red in the shadows of the pink rose. That ties them together visually. You can do the same with fabric, but you have to learn to see the actual colors that are there.

I have this gorgeous Alexander Henry fabric, "Charras" in my stash. I want to make something for Cinco de Mayo with it. You notice the girl on the horse has a red dress. But look closer. Most of it is actually pink. I found a Michael Miller fabric, "Petals", that is red with pink along the edges of the petals. It reminds me of the ruffles around the girl's dress and matches beautifully (in the photo, the pink doesn't show up as much as in real life!). I also found this fabric from Timeless Treasures Fabrics that also has many of the colors from the "Charras" fabric and is reminiscent of the sarape in the main fabric illustration. A solid pink or solid red fabric would not have looked right. 
It's hard to train ourselves to see actual colors because our brains tend to take over and tell us what color we see. (Ask any art teacher if this is not true!) How many of you would automatically say tree bark is brown? Most tree bark is actually gray. (There are exceptions.)
All this to say, when you try to match a color in a fabric, be sure you are actually seeing the color that is there and not what you THINK is there. It's easier said than done, but can make a huge difference in your color matching. 
Until next time....