After taking a class back in the dark ages from Lorraine Torrence, always tell myself to ‘make visual decisions visually’. It is so easy for me to see a fabric in a shop and ‘think’ it will go with my project. Not having the project with me means I can’t know for sure, but I am often confident that my color sense is good and I have the perfect fabric.
Then I am wrong.
This is where color cards come in. I don’t usually have my color cards with me in shops, so they don’t solve all of my problems. However, they definitely help with online shopping for solids.
I like to pull out my color cards when thinking about getting a new solid or needing some solids for a project and comparing my fabrics with potential options. It is also a great way to match solids or find the correct name for a solid of which you need more.
Color cards are also like mini pieces of art. I always want all the fabrics when I open them up.
The bad part is that color cards do get superseded by new versions as fabric manufacturers add colors. While I was researching, I found that Clothworks has increased the number of colors available in their American Made Brands line, thus requiring a new color card to take advantage of all of the options. The same is true for the AGF Pure Solids. I put these on my wishlist. 😉
Having the color cards available has prevented me from spending more money than I need to and also from selecting the wrong color. They can be on the pricey side, which is why I was pleasantly surprised at the excellent prices on the Michael Miller color cards.
