47. How to Create a Scrappy Mix of Colors

Let’s jump back to our pieced version of Express Your Love today. Last week we learned how to make the simple diagonal red sections of hair and it will soon be time to move onto each color in turn as we foundation piece each hair section.

But before we piece another section, let’s learn how to mix colors together to create this effect for your quilts!

Creating a color mix like this is really simple, but I didn’t learn it from playing with fabric. I actually learned how to create solid color mixes from beadwork.

I didn’t have a huge collection of beads when I first got started, and I loved creating large necklaces that required lots of beads of the same shade. Instead of waiting to be able to buy all one shade, I instead mixed several different colors together to create a mix of enough beads of similar colors in order to make the necklace.

That lesson in color mixing – mix equal parts of similar colors until you get a nice collection of that solid color. The effect is rather scrappy, but it often adds more texture to the quilt than just using one solid shade.

So to illustrate how this works I first show you mixing beads and then show you how to pull from scraps and build a collection with fabric as well:

The one thing to remember is color isn’t scary, it’s fun! Pull some fabrics, hang them up on the wall, step back and look at them. What do you like? What do you not like?

This is 100% down to personal opinion, so there are no wrong answers. I might pull a color out of a collection that you would leave in. If you gave 5 quilters the same stack of fabrics, they’d probably each come up with something different.

So PLAY with color and have fun!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

Other Foundation Piecing Posts: 
Prepare Your Foundation 
Red Diagonal Section  
How to Create a Scrappy Mix of Colors 
Orange Triangle Section
Yellow Log Cabin Section  
Green Mosaic Section 
Blue Double Scrappy Section 
Purple Braid Section