Color

The colors of fall are disappointing this year.  All the rain diluted the brilliance of a changing season, and a look out the back window reveals foliage resembling more a lackluster end of summer than an almost Halloween.  I miss the flaming reds, the blazing yellows, and the burning oranges that so often set the spirits afire in October. 

In my quilting class on Saturday, our teacher talked to us about color.  While we laid out our project pieces, she spoke about "value," the lightness or darkness of hue, in color.  An interesting quilt will most likely contain fabrics representing a range of values from light, to medium, to dark.  No wonder picking fabric is challenging for me. Not only should I seek compliment and variety in pattern, but I also ought consider harmony and hue of color.  I understand more fully what my daughter and son-in-law, both artists, mean when they speak of color theory.

And I also realize why I question the choices I sometimes make in fabrics... like this one, a table runner I just finished.

While it is certainly filled with fall colors, when it all came together I regretted the fabric choices I made. I wasn't sure why until Saturday when Deb described the importance of value.  She told us one way to check value in our piecing is to turn the picture into black and white and see the contrast.

So I did and I see what I might have done differently--change the tan in the four-patch or change the intensity of the orange.  Obviously, I am still learning...

The notion of value in color made me think about my own life and the interplay of light and shadow within.  I tend to be on the serious side, with my spirit life resembling these pieces I patched together. I need to swap in some lighter hues for the more somber ones.  Smile more, laugh more, whistle, sing, skip, and delight more.  By simply holding life more lightly, I ought to create a more pleasing pattern for all to enjoy.