Color Changes Everything

Speaking of color, here's an interesting example of how much color can change the feeling of a design. When I originally designed FLYING GEESE I was totally focused on using blues, greens and purples. And it turned out just like I envisioned it - very yummy in those totally cool colors. [I used Overture V115-Delphinium for the variegated thread; Watercolours 068-Mediterranean is also similar.]

This design, by the way, was the first quilt I did by mixing in DMC floss with my usual #5 pearl cotton colors. It finally dawned on me that if I incorporated floss, I could expand my color palette a bit more. DUH! (Sometimes the simplest ideas take the longest to penetrate).

Anyway, I had so much fun adding floss to the quilts, that I designed several more in the "Color Study" series. In the FLYING GEESE design, the "main elements" of the big triangles and main borders are done in the #5 pearl cottons, but the background patterns are done with floss (which was easier to stitch with than the pearl, but you have to strip & lay the floss, which you don't have to do with pearl cotton).

Then, last summer, my sister Diane wanted something to stitch and she selected this FLYING GEESE pattern. But she wanted to use colors that I wouldn't think of for this design - REDS - and completely surprise me with the results. And so she pulled a palette of various reds and pinks and this is what her piece ended up looking like:


We both really liked the look and feel of this piece; and we were both pleasantly surprised at how much "pinker" it looked, and how playful and fresh the pink and red palette seemed. In any event, the different palette gives it a totally different feel. Now it's very valentiney, or perhaps has a more summery-strawberry-parfait feeling to it...Oh,Yum! Isn't color delicious!?!