Colour palettes No 2

Yesterday I spent a few very enjoyable hours choosing colour schemes and patchwork fabrics for a class project. The first colour scheme wasn’t too hard, as I had already planned it out. It was simply a matter of finding fabrics with those colours.

The second colour scheme was much harder, as I had not properly planned a second colour scheme and was sort of winging it! I stumbled around looking at fabrics, not really making any progress. The shop owner felt a little sorry for me and started suggesting some things.

And then I remembered the second post I planned to write on colour palettes! (You can find the first one here.)

When you’re stuck for a colour scheme as I was yesterday, one way to figure something out is to work with what someone else has already worked out. By this I mean use the colours in a patterned fabric.

If you look along the side edges of a fabric (called selvedges or selvages) you’ll often see a white strip on one of them, sometimes with the name of the fabric design, the designer, and little spots of colour.

You can see the spots in this example. They show all the coloured fabric inks that have been used to print the fabric.

Looking along the spots, you can choose all or some of them to use in your colour scheme. I’ve chosen spots 2, 4, 5, 9 and 10. (I realise it is not a terribly exciting or inspiring colour scheme, but it is just an example!)

Yesterday I was eventually able to come up with a very satisfactory second colour scheme by using the one that a fabric designer had already worked out. (Not the one shown!) It made things so much easier!