Quilters Color Quest: 6 or is it 7? Value

I’m falling behind with the Quilter’s Color Quest 🙁 Rachel Hauser has been using her book, ‘The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color’ as the backdrop to a series of blog posts and challenges encouraging us to explore colour. I’ve been following the posts and delving into my copy of the book whilst using the colour swatches to play with my fabric scraps. I’m enjoying making the Bear Paw blocks. There’s a sizable community on Instagram recording their challenge blocks. We’ve made enough blocks now to make quite a colourful display. Check out #quilterscolorquest and #quiltersfieldguidetocolor to see the progress being made 🙂

I seem to have ‘lost’ a challenge somewhere along the way… I thought I was doing challenge number 6 but it’s actually number 7! Nevermind! I’m just glad to have completed the exercise and added to my collection of Bear Paw blocks.

This challenge/experiment is all about colour value. Does a colour/fabric register as dark, medium or light? To create movement across a quilt top and/or to clearly define a patchwork pattern it is important to consider value when choosing fabrics. Two fabrics of different hues (colour) may both have the same value – this is best seen by looking at them through a red filter or by taking a photo and editing it to black & white. Also a fabric’s value can change depending on the other fabrics placed with it. So a fabric that registers as a medium in one collection could become a dark when placed in another collection.

To find out more read Rachel’s post on the subject of value. Last year Yvonne Fuchs posted a detailed video tutorial showing how to get the most accurate readings of value by converting photos to ‘grayscale’ – this is how she checks the suitability of fabric combos for her signature ‘Transparency’ quilts.

Linking with Susan at Quilt Fabrication for Midweek Makers.

Allison