Other Artists
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Media
I recently took another class from Maker’s Mercantile. This was a color class. Though I am confident in color theory and choosing colors, taking a class is a good way to learn new things. During the class, they instructor used a site called Unsplash to find photos he could use in his presentation. The site describes itself as “… the Internet’s source of freely usable images.” I, of course, tried looking for ‘quilt’ – just doing a simple search in the search box. The photos that came up were beautiful, but there is a lot of scope for more beautiful quilt photos. I also searched for ‘Austria’ and found photos of places I know. In searching for ‘red-violet’, I came up with a variety of subjects which all included that color. I am impressed with the search engine.
The other site I learned about was the Adobe Color site. First, choose a ‘rule’ on the left, then move the arms on the wheel to your desired color. Under the color wheel, you will see the colors based on your choices. The colors are listed as RGB, but you can switch to CMYK, HSB and LAB, if you prefer. Use your fabric color chart to match the colors listed to fabric.
My guild was filmed back in 2016 and the video has just his YouTube. I am not in the video, but many current guild members are pictured. Many quilts are shown as well. If you want to see what our guild is about, take a look.
I mentioned Alex Anderson’s Stash building classes a few weeks ago. These are free classes on YouTube. She styles herself as a Luddite and that gets old since she is clearly successful in her profession and not an old geezer. I watched two and half of them the other night. They are seriously dumbed down color classes, but not without their usefulness. The first ‘class’ is about Value, Character and Color Family. This class was interesting, especially when she showed examples of different kinds of fabric and show she puts them together successfully. She uses a lot of tone on tones/blenders in these examples and doesn’t show many ‘modern’ fabrics. I think you could translate what she is showing to your own fabric collection. She also uses solids a bit throughout the series. The second is about how to use the color wheel for different results. The third is about how Alex buys fabric: quantities, etc. I like the terminology she uses for the different fabrics and she goes into that a bit more in the third class. I didn’t plan on watching the third class, but they lost Internet at the end of the second class so she finished up her talk about the color wheel at the beginning of the third class. The classes are free, but you have to watch the bits of The Quilt Show marketing she throws in. I did skip some of that, which was possible since I wasn’t watching it live and didn’t have much interest. Also, she shows pictures of her grandchildren and talks about her family quite a bit. In a way, these classes are part of the conversation Alex and Ricky are creating in the Quilt Show. They want their viewers to think they are part of the family. I respect that.
Books, Fabrics, Notions & Supplies
Those tempters ad temptresses at Maker’s Mercantile send me a newsletter every week. It is often easy for me to resist the fabulous yarn temptations, but this most recent newsletter showed that they have mulberry silk embroidery thread. It comes in a bout 33 colors, some of which are variegated. I’d love to try it. There is no shortage of embroidery floss at my house so I am resisting for the moment.