Jewel tones

Crisp edges
Bold Contrast
Geometrical Shapes
Surprise

These are the qualities that describe most of my art quilts. These are the design elements I frequently post about on “Your Inspiration Zone” blog. You can see how I make them on my website, Quilts4u.com.
I find visual inspiration everywhere. I don’t feel the need to make Statement Quilts, and expressing [...]

Signature Style in Art Quilts – Part 1

Now here I go out on a limb…
For commercial reasons, I am changing to a new signature look in the art quilts I make for sale. There are 3 reasons, and the first is that the art quilts in my “new” series are SELLING!! [...]

3685, a poem about the DMC embroidery floss color, burgundy red 3685,
by Stephen Beal,  The Very Stuff *, Poems on color, thread, and the habits of women. (It seems appropriate to celebrate burgundy at harvest time.)
Say you see it in a store, in a dress, this red, you could well say,
“Too dark” and pass [...]

Mix the Color You Really Want – every time
Blue and yellow don’t make green? But we were taught that in school, and many times too!
If this is news to you, after reading this book by Michael Wilcox, you will discover why simply mixing blue and yellow usually doesn’t make the green you are looking for.  [...]

Getting the Look You Want
Figurative and landscape quilts can be challenging to create from the standpoint of selecting the color palette from our fabric stash. Buying fresh fabric isn’t necessarily the answer.
Do we select a palette based on what we see out there, or one that reflects what we feel about the subject. Maybe we [...]

Magic, Drama, Excitement
a book review of Katie Jane Widger’s guide to dyeing fabrics using fiber reactive dye
Right away I have to tell you that this book is hard to find. I’m writing this review because I feel The New Color Wheel Fabric Dyeing is among the three best dyeing books available for fiber artists who [...]

Sunburns, Water Test Strips and Lipstick – What’s the Connection?
Most of us know if we have some degree of color blindness. The half percent of women and the 6 percent of men diagnosed as being color blind learn early in life to make compensations in color identification in their daily lives. It’s the tints and [...]