Green is an interesting color for me. When I thought about it, I thought my projects would be similar to how I use blue. My fabric stash definitely has it as one of my main colors. However, I actually realized that I do not use it as frequently or in the same way.
I think I find green, while very appealing, a lot of the time very symbolic or representative of well-known brands, which to me is a little off-putting:
- Irish/St Patrick’s Day,
- Christmas
- trees/plants, four leaf clover
- Starbucks, Barnes and Nobles, BP
- Springboks (South African Ruby team), Wallabies (Australian Rugby team)….that’s why I might have an issue being a kiwi (All Black – NZ Rugby team) supporter 😉
When I do use green, in a very limited way. Here are examples.
Green + Neutrals
As there are so many various greens represented in fabric, I really do like a monochromatic color palette with various neutrals. These place mats using shot cottons and linen are a great example.
Another project I have underway, is a quilt design that is inspired on a tree-lined street. These hexagons use various greens to represent the light casts and the darkness of the leaves of the trees. The background fabric will be Kona White to make those greens pop.
Green + Multi-color
I think I like the balance green brings to a bright and multi-colored palette. I use it a lot in this manner and I know when selecting fabrics, I always add the green back in.
In my recent project, Treehouse Ladders (more to come on this project), green was definitely used to add balance to this very pop art inspired palette. It needed to be this very bright green, but not to yellow as both orange and yellow were used. It was also important it was not to blue since the palette also had blue and aqua.
In this multicolored quilt, Natural Corridors, Kona Pickle (a yellow based green) was used as the focus fabric for the negative space. I decided to use this color as it pulled the citron print out a little but worked well with the blues and coral prints. The pickle area, is not too over bearing in this design and it highlights the offset centered block well.
The Spoonflower Sampler Quilt, also required both the mid green print and the citron print to balance the colors.
Lastly, my Phased Circles quilts, using Carolyn Friedlander’s Botanics and Architexture lines, includes green. This was obviously driven from the 6 main color ways included in her fabric lines. This example of green though does show the color variations available in green prints, and the availability of high and low volume green based prints.
I was asked before starting this series about how I decide on the thread color for quilting. That is a great question especially when creating multi-colored quilts with such a difference in color. So above my thread choices are as follows:
- Treehouse Ladders: Invisible Thread (clear). I used Premium Silky Invisible thread.
- Natural Corridors: Light Grey
- Spoonflower Sampler Quilt: Off White
- Phased Circles: Color Matched the fabric. Blue block: 6738, 2725; Orange Block: 1133; Green Block: 2835, 5015; Pink Block: 1100, 2600; Jade: 2810, 5007; Gold: 5022, 2110
Monthly Tip
I love learning how other artists in other mediums use their color palettes. Here are a couple of examples.
Josef Albers: Interaction of Color
J.M.W Turner
Monthly Resource
Book: The Secret Language of Color
Give-away
There is no project this month, so this is open to everyone. Just leave one comment below on what you enjoy about these posts and what you would like to see more of or see different.
I will randomly choose a winner on May 1st, who I will announce in my May Colour Blog Series post. The winner will receive:
- 1/2 yard green bundle of 6 prints curated by me.
- An exclusive thread box from Fat Quarter Shop.
Last Month’s Winner….
is Katherine Gray who entered a fantastic hexie project she was working on in blue and greys. Katherine, I will direct message you shortly for your details.
Factotum of Arts 