How to Match Quilt Square Colors
The great fear in the back of every quilter's mind is working long and hard on a quilt, and when it is done, it is beautifully crafted but, well, ugly. It screams confusion and clashing colors, making it unusable for anything other than the car trunk. The solution is, of course, planning. A big part of the design of a quilt is the subtle interplay between colors and their placement in relation to each other, and many people find working with colors difficult.
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Color Scheme
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Never start your quilt without a color scheme. Use the colors of the room where it will reside or start with the favorite color of the person who will receive the quilt as a gift. A good start to a color scheme is a few squares cut from an old shirt or dress that has sentimental meaning. This can be your theme fabric. Once you have the main theme color, add complementary and analogous colors. Be careful not to combine too many different colors or patterns to make your design appear confusing.
Color Wheels
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There are two different color wheels to investigate: the Ives color wheel and the traditional color wheel. The Ives color wheel uses magenta, turquoise and yellow because they are the only true colors and are used to make dyes. Mix them together in varying amounts to create other colors. Understanding how colors are created from this mix will help you identify colors that harmonize. The traditional color wheel arranges primary, secondary and tertiary colors in such a way that you can pick a color on the wheel and its complementary color will be located directly across the wheel from it. Its analogous colors are those on either side of it.
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Design and Placement
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The goal of matching colors in a quilt is to create harmony to the eye. Use a color wheel to find color harmony by using complementary and analogous colors. Choose your fabrics by identifying the most obvious colors in each and the highlight colors, which are small areas of color that stand out to the eye. Highlight colors can be echoed throughout the quilt and will complement the main color of the theme fabric. Placing colors throughout the quilt design creates the artistic interest. Group colors together for an artistic flare, or arrange them symmetrically throughout the quilt. The beauty of your quilt is directly related to the care you take in choosing the colors.
Last Look
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Place your squares and triangles on the floor in the design you intend, then walk around it and look at it critically from all angles. This is the last look that will identify areas where the colors look peculiar together. When you see a spot that needs to be changed, examine whether you are harmonizing the obvious colors or the highlight colors, and try doing the opposite. For example, if your main color is red and your highlight color is turquoise, adding a little yellow may prove to be the solution because it lies in the third of the color wheel opposite red and turquoise. The important thing is to be open to experimenting with your design.
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