For years I made quilts not really giving much conscious thought to color value. I was more focused on the color and the prints (my favorite part of quilting- choosing the fabrics and the colors). I had worked with color for years as an apparel designer and merchandiser. Color is my zone of comfort. And I felt like I must be incorporating some color value into all my color decisions, but I wasn’t entirely sure.
Maybe color value is something you don’t really want to think about. After all, you are already thinking about colors…AND the pattern…AND cutting…AND piecing the blocks…
Is color value really all that important in quilting? My answer- A BIG YES! Color value can transform a quilt design if used with intention. Understanding the color value work within my quilt designs has completely changed how I make quilts. And now I want to help all quilt makers understand how to use color value for their own work.
Let me introduce you to my world of color value!
These days, I design my quilts paying close attention to color values of any group of fabrics I use in my quilts, and it has truly changed the quilting game for me.
I came to quilting from a career in apparel design and merchandising, about 25 years ago. Never having made a quilt, I began my first ones by repurposing fabrics like t-shirt and baby clothes. Scrappy quilts. The fabrics themselves may have been unrelated, but the memories they represented were what was important. That was what I thought of as a quilt- a patchwork of scraps and fabrics from other things.
But coming from a design background, I was curious about creating an elevated quilt design, and how to do that using fabrics that had nothing much in common. My first quilts felt a bit scattered to me when I completed them, design-wise.
I know that I get a creative charge when I am given design parameters, instead of a blank slate with no parameters, so I wanted to create some simple design rules for any quilt I did, to work within.
That’s when I started playing around with color values. And let me tell you- it changed everything.
Now I want to demystify the concept of color value for others, because successfully using color value in any quilt is magic🪄!
This is an old and very true statement. I love color, and have always been pretty good at instinctively combining colors and creating quilts that are glow with color. But I know that color value also plays a very large role in that. What I mean is, if a quilt feels successful in color, in design, etc, color value likely has a lot to do with that success.
Conversely, if the opposite is happening, and a quilt design isn’t feeling quite right, or if you feel like that special something seems to be missing from your layout, it could be that the color value isn’t doing what it should.
So let’s lay out the important parts of color value that I recommend you should pay attention to in your quilts.
Cotillion Quilt Pattern
Stepping Stones Quilt Pattern
Understanding What Color Value Really Is
The simple definition of color value- it is the lightness or darkness of a color.
For all of the above to happen, dark and light values must be present. They work together to create forms and shapes.
Do you see the shapes and forms, or dark and light values, in the quilt below?
Tufted Quilt Pattern
Those shapes you see are accomplished by having both dark and light color values in the design, and knowing how to lay them out.
Now that we’ve established what color value is, the next point to understand that the color value of a fabric is not the same as its color. For that, you need your chosen fabrics to “talk” to one another.
Let’s look at an example-
The color of the fabric below is blue. But that doesn’t really tell you what it’s color value is.
You may instinctively think it looks light or dark in value. But to determine its color value, we need is more information. Because you can’t determine what color value that blue print is if you look at it on its own. It needs other fabrics around it. Other fabrics around that blue print will help determine what its color value is, and vice versa.
Let’s add a fabric beside that original blue print-
See also:
Based on what we see above, the original blue print is definitely the LIGHT value of the two, and the newly added print is the dark value. Can you see that? They are informing each other.
But…. what if we add a different print beside the original swatch?-
Now the original print on the left would be considered the DARK value, and the new fabric on the right would be the light value. Fabrics only have a color value when they have other fabrics around them. It is important that they relate to each other.
Each of the fabrics you choose for a quilt have color value that is relative, and will change depending on other the fabrics you place around it in the quilt design..
Try this-
Take some of your least favorite prints from your stash. Put them out on your worktable. Now pull some more favored prints from your stash and lay them out alongside the others. Do the favored prints make the less favored prints look dark or light in color value? Next add more fabrics around and go through the same thought- are these dark or light in value? Are they changing value? The more you add, the less the focus is on that least favorite print. Open your eyes up to the possibility of how you can use the least favorite print. Sometimes, a lesser favorite print could be the perfect light or dark value needed in a scrappy quilt design. Maybe some of the colors in that least favorite print can suddenly pop and show up a different way. By focusing on color value instead of color you can see different possibilities and new ways of using your fabrics together.
And let’s face it, most of us have more fabric than we will ever use. 🙋🏻♀️
Looking at the colors in your stash, do you start to consider color-related questions- like thinking you have “too much green” or “not enough warm colors”. Or maybe you feel you need more low-volume prints (a term to describe light colored fabrics with softer, lighter prints on them)? You may look at your fabric stash thinking “there’s a lot of blue” or “I need more lights”. I want to challenge you to look at your fabric stash in terms of light and dark color value, instead of purely color. Lay some of the fabrics out together on your work table and divide them up into dark and light value.
Try looking at your stash from a color value perspective. Here’s a simple experiment to try-
Having lots of different light and dark values, but dividing them into only 2 categories is the first step in understanding how to play color value in a quilt. And it’s a really interesting way to view your stash.
150cm Wide Felt Baize - Red - Ideal For Poker Bridge Table Card Craft
Felt is a type of matted fabric that consists of textile fibers condensed and pressed together. Traditionally made with wool or another type of animal fur, it’s now possible to make felt with acrylic and other forms of synthetic fibers.
Wool felt is highly flame retardant, and it extinguishes itself. This textile also has sound-dampening properties, and it is highly moisture-wicking and absorbent. Felt holds the distinction of being one of the only fabrics made without weaving or knitting.
Using heat, water, and pressure, felt manufacturers permanently interlock natural or synthetic fibers to create matted felt fabric. It’s then possible to cut or shape felt to produce apparel items as varied as hats and boot liners.
Felt is believed to be the world’s oldest fabric. The earliest archaeological evidence of felt dates back to 6500 BC, making this fabric older than any knitted or woven textile.
Various cultures have competing myths regarding the origins of felt. In the Western tradition, for instance, the invention of felt is attributed to either Saint Clement or Saint James, both of whom are said to have placed natural fibers in their sandals to prevent blisters only to have these fibers turn into felt due to heat, pressure, and sweat.
Felt Star Christmas Ornament
According to Sumerian legend, felt was discovered by the warrior hero Urnamman. The felt origin stories of other cultures might not be as colorful, but felt-making has played an integral role in the societies of the Eurasian continent for millennia.
The mountain people of Tibet, for instance, ancestrally used felt due to its insulative properties. Even today, the holy men of Tibet, including the Dalai Lama, wear traditional felt hats.
Early cultures in India used felt for blankets and saddles, and the people of ancient Iran and Turkey commonly made felt floor mats. One of the most important uses of felt in the ancient world, however, was in the construction of circular Mongol houses called yurts, which remain the primary forms of dwellings on the Eurasian Steppe to this day.
While the oldest preserved samples of felt were found in Turkey, historical evidence seemingly identifies the Altai Mountains as the region where felt was first made into sophisticated products. Inhabitants of this region continue to make felt for yurts and tourist items as part of an unbroken tradition that stretches back thousands of years.
Starting in the 16th century, the economy of the area that now comprises southern Canada and the Great Lakes region in the United States was largely supported by the beaver felt hat trade. Between 1550 and 1850, hats made with beaver fur felt were among the most popular exports from the New World, and the beaver pelt trade alone made it possible for the British and French to establish rudimentary colonies throughout what is now the inland American-Canadian border region.
How to make a felt sunflower
Commonly called beaverkins, hatmakers produced beaver fur felt hats in a variety of distinct shapes including the immediately recognizable tophat. The beaver felt industry nearly drove North American beavers to extinction, and it was only a sudden change in style preferences that allowed their survival.
While some hatmakers still make beaver felt hats to this day, most accessory manufacturers have switched to more ethical fibers like wool. Felt is still a popular hat material, but this fabric’s uses have expanded into other types of accessories as well as homewares and crafting materials.
With the invention of acrylic fabric in the early 20th century, the international felt industry believed that it had found a cheaper alternative to natural fibers. While natural felt is renowned for its flame retardant qualities, however, acrylic is highly combustible, and other synthetic fibers used to make felt, such as rayon, aren’t much better.
As a result, high-quality felt remains made with natural fibers like wool, and consumers generally associate acrylic or rayon felt with lower-tier products. Felt never truly regained the popularity it lost in the West when beaver hats went out of style, but plenty of cultures around the world continue to use felt for ancestral purposes entirely unfazed by the aftereffects of this ultimately temporary style craze.
Buy high-quality, low-priced felt fabric here . If you are UK based, you can buy it here .
The felt production process varies slightly depending on whether it contains wool, acrylic, or another textile fiber. In the case of wool, raw fibers are derived from the coats of wool-bearing animals, and in the case of acrylic, fibers are made by dissolving a polymer in various artificial chemicals and spinning the resulting substance.
Once textile manufacturers have acquired the desired fibers, they combine them into a mass using a cylindrical device studded with steel nails. Next, a carding machine cards these fibers into a loose web with standardized spaces between fibers.
A machine known as a cross-lapper or a vlamir then combines multiple webs together to make a roll, and four of these rolls are layered on top of each other to make a batt. To harden these batts of felted material, felt manufacturers expose the batts to heat and moisture, and then the final shrinking process is accomplished with a combination of heat, pressure, and moisture.
Most felt manufacturers use sulfuric acid during the final stages of the felt production process, and they neutralize this acid with soda ash and warm water once the matt has reached its ideal size. Finally, an industrial machine uses rollers to smooth out any irregularities in the finished felt fabric.
Felt manufacturers are now free to dye, cut, or form the felt to complete consumer products. They may also choose to sell unaltered felt in bulk sheets.
Shop a wide variety of felt fabrics here for US and rest of world here and here if you are UK based.
Today, textile manufacturers primarily use felt to produce hats and other insulative substances such as boot linings. Thicker and harder than woven or knitted wool, felt provides an excellent barrier against cold temperatures, and this woolen material is not scratchy against the skin.
Outside the realm of apparel, felt manufacturers sometimes use this substance to make decorative pillows, handbags, and other homewares or accessories that benefit from felt’s softness and additional useful properties without needing to be significantly flexible. As most children and parents know, felt is also a popular crafting material, and you can use your imagination to make practically anything with felt. Most felt designed for crafting, however, is acrylic, which is less comfortable against the skin and more harmful to the environment than woolen felt.
Despite a recent depletion of sheep livestock levels across the continent, Australia remains the world’s largest exporter of wool products, followed closely by China. Therefore, the majority of woolen felt was manufactured in Australia, though in some cases, Australian sheep farmers ship their raw wool to China for finishing. The world’s largest producer of synthetic textile products, on the other hand, is China, so the majority of acrylic and rayon felt is Chinese.
Genuine wool felt is reasonably expensive, but it is usually around the same price as other wool textiles. Felt made with acrylic or other synthetic fibers is less expensive, but it does not have the same beneficial attributes as wool felt.
Over the centuries, textile artisans have developed quite a few different types of woolen or fur felt. More recently, fabric manufacturers have deviated from the norm and started making felt with materials other than natural animal fibers. Make sure you’re familiar with all the different types of felt available on the market:
Still one of the most common types of felt, textile artisans made felt using wool from sheep or other wool-bearing animals for the majority of this fabric’s history. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, wool felt shares the beneficial attributes of its base fiber, including absorbency, fire resistance, and impressive insulative properties.
To this day, some textile manufacturers use beaver pelts to make felt hats and other accessories. While not as in vogue in the era of animal rights, fur felt is useful due to its impressive durability and high malleability. It’s also possible to make fur felt with types of fur other than beaver, but in every case, fur felt production involves the killing of fur-bearing animals.
Luxury Fabrics - Baize for Snooker Pool Billiards Tables - Felt - Matting
Acrylic felt has become increasingly popular over the last century. Cheaper to produce than wool, acrylic felt offers some of the same benefits as conventional felt. Unlike wool or fur felt, however, acrylic felt is highly flammable, and it is uncomfortable when worn against the skin.
Commonly used in industrial and medical applications, rayon felt shares the hydrophilic properties of wool felt. One of the major benefits of rayon felt is the ability to shape this textile into various insulative products, but like all synthetic textile fibers, rayon is a non-biodegradable pollutant.
Pressed felt is the most common type of felt, and it is also the oldest. Produced by combining textile fibers into a mat using water, heat, and pressure, this type of felt is usually sold in sheets and shaped into various consumer, industrial, and medical items.
Artisans use specialized needles to make needled felt figurines and other three-dimensional products. This type of felt is not insulative or used for industrial purposes, and instead, most needled felt products are decorative in nature.
Woven felt is a type of felt fabric that textile manufacturers produce by applying heat, water, and pressure to pre-woven fabrics. The result is a matted, highly insulative fabric that can be much thinner than pressed felt.
Rico Felt Sheets 60x90
Wool and fur felt are among the world’s most biodegradable substances. The only potential environmental issues associated with these types of felt regard land use and proper animal stewardship. In the modern era, harvesting animals for fur is considered to be cruel and barbaric, and in some cases, wool production can involve animal cruelty and cause pollution or soil erosion.
Natural fibers are, however, invariably better for the environment than synthetic textiles. Both acrylic and rayon production involve the use of toxic, caustic chemicals that can harm textile workers. Only rarely do textile manufacturers dispose of these chemicals properly, and in most cases, they pollute surrounding ecosystems.
Acrylic and rayon felt are not washed as commonly as other synthetic textiles, but these synthetic felt fabrics can still contribute to microfiber pollution while in use. As non-biodegradable fabrics, acrylic and rayon felt fill up landfills or contribute to plastic pollution when discarded.
Wool felt fabrics may be eligible for Woolmark certification, which is a certifying agency that ensures wool products were produced using safe, sustainable, and cruelty-free processes. Certain fur felt fabrics produced in the European Union may be eligible for WelFur certification, which ensures that fur products were produced responsibly.
Many types of sustainable fabric may be eligible for OEKO TEX certification. These organizations certify natural fabrics that were produced using organic, sustainable processes, and they even certify certain types of recycled synthetic textiles. Recycled synthetic textiles may also be eligible for Global Recycle Standard (GRS) certification, and synthetic textiles of all types may be eligible for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification.
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