Modern Quilts....Hot or Cold?

jill here....Since we took a "process" pledge, I have to share a recent dilemma while creating a Flatbread sample.  Usually color is my strength and not my challenge but sometimes, experience is the best teacher (or gets in the way)!

Perhaps only having four colors leaves little room for error.   Value is maybe even more important than color and I had already figured out that puzzle. The pattern calls for four values: light, medium light, medium print and a dark.  I had selected the medium print (green leaf print with some blue on a neutral ground) at the quilt shop, hoping for universal appeal.  The light background worked well and the mottled medium seemed the appropriate value.  The dark was similar to the green in the print only darker, more yellow than blue.

Dark

Medium light

Light

Medium print

Sorry about the color but you can see the discordance.

The problem seemed to me that the medium light and the medium print were "blurry".  There just wasn't enough definition between the two to make it more exciting.  So I had some choices:  change the  color or the texture, trying to keep the value similar.  I went back to the quilt shop and purchased a blue small texture (trying to relate to the blue in the medium print).  Still not right!  The blue was too clear (pastel), too light in value and didn't work with the earthy undertone of the medium print. 

Well now it was too late to shop so I had to find something from the stash.  After unsewing the previous attempts I was discouraged but finally came up with a gold. The value was right, the texture was nearly perfect and the color was still questionable.  I had to remind myself that you don't have to marry every choice of fabric!

So ultimately what I was reminded of is that there is an undertone that affects the color balance.  There was this gold, earthy undertone that keep influencing the direction I should take.  My resistance has a lot to do with avocado green and harvest gold in my previous life.  Surely someone will like it!

'Till next Tuesday....