1. ­52 Quiltmaker • May/June ’16
You’ll find an infinite assortment
of color ideas online. Use sites like
Pinterest, Instagram and flickr to
look for inspiration. The search
features are helpful. Try searching
Pinterest for something like “pink
and green quilt” and see what hap-
pens.
You can use Google for color inspi-
ration, too. When you arrive at
google.com, look near the top for a
horizontal row of options and select
“Images.” Type in the search terms,
such as “blue and orange quilts”
(no quotation marks needed).
Thousands of images fitting your
search will appear. Be warned: You
may spend hours looking!
Diane Harris is Associate Editor
for Quiltmaker.
If fabric and thread are a quilt’s
skin and bones, then color has to
be a quilt’s soul. Quilt after quilt
would be as lifeless as a corpse
without the reflections of light we
recognize as color.
If you’re making a quilt from a pat-
tern, you can always reproduce the
colors shown. But what happens if
you want to change it up? How do
you proceed? Where do you find
the inspiration to choose unique,
attractive and successful color com-
binations for your projects?
The answers are right in front of
you. You need only learn how to
spot them, record them, talk about
them and use them for yourself.
Color for Quilters:
Finding Inspiration
by Diane Harris
Become an observer. Practice notic-
ing the colors in your world. When
you’re outdoors, pay attention to
the palettes of nature. I’ve pulled
off the road more than once to snap
a photo of the astounding array
of greens and yellows in a ditch.
Notice the sky, especially early and
late in the day. What’s the strange
hue that creeps into the air just
before a thunderstorm? These are
all opportunities to notice color in a
new way.
Indoors, notice color in the printed
material you consume. Catalogs,
calendars, greeting cards, advertise-
ments and magazines contain inter-
esting color combinations. Look at
garment fabrics, too. And here’s a
little secret: Banks and hotels use
the most fabulous prints and stripes
on upholstered furniture—look and
see if you can’t spot some color reci-
pes you’d use for quilts.
Blushing Buds by Theresa Eisinger and Peg Sprad-
lin, Quiltmaker May/June ’15 (No 163). How would
you describe these colors? Can you identify what
makes them so successful?
Family of Three by Lorna McMahon,
Quiltmaker Jan/Feb ’16 (No. 167).
Imagine the difference if this quilt’s back-
ground was a neutral. The aqua serves to
emphasize the giraffes.

2. Quiltmaker #169 quiltmaker.com 53
Record your observations. A lot of
your looking will fall by the wayside
unless you start writing down what
you see and admire. Make notes
about the photos you shoot, the
images you love and the quilts that
make your mouth water. Whenever
it’s possible, save the images to an
inspiration notebook. Keep hard
copies or take phone photos to
preserve them. Online, right-click
becomes your best friend. I recently
got a Polaroid camera for instant
color keepsakes.
Develop your own color language.
Here’s what I mean. One spring I
went shopping at the mall. The win-
dow displays at a popular store were
a combination of colors I loved.
I wrote down “sage, salmon and
Williamsburg blue.” I could recreate
this recipe later because I had fixed
in my mind exactly what colors I
meant by using those words. Even if
nobody else knows what you mean
by “Alice’s pink bathroom,” if you
know what you mean, you can find
fabrics in that specific shade of pink
when you want to use it.
Other people’s quilts can be a
continual source of inspiration. I
sometimes buy a quilt pattern or
a magazine just because I love the
colors in a quilt. Imitation is the
sincerest form of flattery, and since
you can’t copyright a color scheme,
it’s perfectly okay to borrow from
what has worked for someone else.
There is plenty of color inspiration
in Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks, so take
a look at those issues, where top
designers have gone all out with
powerful color ideas.
When you come across a quilt or
a block you love, learn to say why
you find it attractive. Is it the com-
bination of colors? Maybe it’s the
background and the way it sets off
the rest of the fabrics. Could it be
the brightness or muddiness of the
fabrics? Do the colors shout with
excitement, or do they say, “Sit
down and put your feet up”? Being
able to identify exactly what you
admire will help you to use the col-
ors more authentically for yourself.
It’s also possible that the colors
aren’t what you like at all. In that
case, figure out what is calling to
you and make a note of it. Your col-
lection of observations becomes a
roadmap to your creativity. What a
treasure.
There is one color tool on the mar-
ket that I couldn’t live without. The
Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool from
C&T Publishing has consistently
gotten me out of color quandaries.
I’ve learned a great deal by using
this tool over time, and I highly rec-
ommend that you get one. I wrote
about one way I use the tool on
Quilty Pleasures; find that post at
quiltmaker.com/colortools.
Another resource I’m loving is The
Quilter’s Practical Guide to Color
by Becky Goldsmith, also from C&T.
It’s not about color theory so much
as it is a handbook for quilters who
want to
understand
how fabric
behaves in
their quilts.
Years of
experience
have given
Goldsmith
valuable
insights,
and she
shares them in a way quilters can
understand and use.
Everyone sees and uses color differ-
ently. There are no right or wrong
color combinations, but there are
more and less successful recipes.
Use these practices to become the
captain of your own color ship, and
then steer it where you will.
Scarlet Spin by Diane Harris, Quiltmaker
Jan/Feb ’14 (No. 155). This quilt was inspired by
the Infinite Variety exhibit of 650 red and white
quilts in New York City in 2011.
Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool by Joen Wolfrom for
C&T Publishing, $18.95, ctpub.com
Record your color observations in a journal
you can refer to often.