🐥🌺 CHOSE FABRICS LIKE A PRO - 6 EXERCISES TO SHARPEN YOUR SKILLS

we all love buying fiber not only is it a visual and tactile experience it also sparks possibilities but when we get at home we often can't figure out what to do with it today I have some exercises for you to get to know your fabric they'll give you a new understanding of what you have but more importantly it will give you ideas of where to use it so stick with me and I'll show you how to do it hi there I'm Karen Brown of Jessica to dine quilts and if you haven't been to my channel before I give you tips tricks and strategies to help you make the quilt that you want to make and I'd like to thank today's sponsor Skillshare when you begin to quilt or so you buy the fabrics that you like there's colors you like and the colors don't make you like but we are often surprised when we begin to use them that they don't turn out quite the way we expect them to or more likely we're too scared to make a mistake with them and they accumulate in our closet the truth is all fabrics have a personality and all have a range of places where they work best and knowing where to use them and why to use them is a skill that comes with practice the good news is not all practice needs to have a project involved the following six exercises are to be used as 15 to 60 minutes worth of play with absolutely no commitments set up your timer pull out a stack of fabrics and use them to learn and explore when you time is up fold those fabrics back up and put them away so the first exercise has to deal with color and understanding what hues are in your fabric if you are unsure of what a hue is and its associated tints tones and shades please watch my video on color theory I'll put a link down in the notes below most of us can easily put a pure hue in its right spot on the color wheel but less saturated colors not so much so let's get out of your color wheel and test yourself and you might get some surprises let's take a look at these three I'll start with the one in the middle at first glance I thought this was a yellow-green but when I put it against that card on the color wheel it so clearly was not I was honestly surprised to find that it had orange in it it turns out that this is a very dissatisfied colors is peach but I'm always surprised to find that sits on the same part of the color wheel that my favorite color is on which is a dark warm red most people would call this a green but when you look at the color wheel it is a D saturated high value aqua does this mean for you your color wheel will show what that hue looks like in other saturations for you to match up your fabrics the color wheel also shows color harmonies and the other hues that coordinate with it let's take a look at this triadic so now we can bring in this beautiful aqua story which contrasts very nicely with our yellow orange story now you might be asking where is the fuchsia the truth is I don't have a lot of fuchsia in my stash there's a little bit of red in this D saturated brown and on the top of the told stools but I did manage to find this small piece by the way this is the color wheel that I use from Joan Wolfram and I'll put a link down in the notes below alternatively you can download this free handout of color wedges from my website look under patterns and downloads and it's under color theory the second exercise is about value when you're wanting to move your projects from that beginner level to the intermediate level understanding value is key using value well at contrast depth and dimension value is often referred to on the gray scale where white at one end is the highest and black at the other end is the lowest and with the exception of the pure hue all colors will have some amount of black or white in them I want you to take a pile of fabrics any random pile will do or it could be a stack of back quarters here I'm actually using a layer cake and you want to arrange them from the lightest to darkest [Music] then take a black-and-white photo and see how you did rearrange your fabrics any adjustments and take another photo continue taking photos until you've got it right when we arrange things by value you can see that not all colors are equal but you also see the effect that pattern has on your color and how it makes it darker or lighter and what you thought was just a nice cute pattern in four different colorways turns out to be just a little bit more complicated and when you were choosing fabric sets it's just as important to have contrast with value as with color this third exercise is about color harmony some fabrics are multicolored or you may have several similar fabrics in different colors but they're all part of the same collection understanding how these colors relate to each other is important so you understand what other fabrics will coordinate with them so take a multi colored fabric and identify what hues are present I'm always amazed when I look at a multicolored fabric how there's colors that I never realized were there before I can see the orange of the flower I can see it's surrounded by a orange yellow but I never noticed this green in the background before which means it's an analogous color harmony this is one of my favorite fabrics this is a tulip ink and you can easily see that it's purple and green but what you don't see is that there's blue in the flower there's this great bud and then you have grey in the center of the flower as well this is also an analogous scheme but it's so broadly analogous that the colors on the outside edge the purple in the yellow-green are complementary and then once you've established with hues are involved you can go to - and try pulling colors that are in that hue but are not exactly the same the fourth exercise is about pattern fabric design has several characteristics scale how big is the print density how much negative space is present around that symmetry there's two types of symmetry that we're looking at one is mirror symmetry and then there's rotational symmetry directional fabrics is there an up or down repeat how many times within the whole width of the fabric is the pattern repeated and the last thing is theme so you often see these within collections for this exercise you're going to need a set of templates I talked about these in my video ten sewing hacks with templates and you are going to want a selection lay them on your fabrics and move them around and you want to notice how the fabric changes the stripe looks like a fairly consistent overall pattern but when you put the templates down you can see at the smallest sizes it can look quite different just moving it a quarter of an inch and turning the fabric 90 degrees also produces a different result in this fabric the dominant color changes depending on what size you use this pattern works really well right down to the smallest size but loses some of its punch at the large one this fabric is the opposite it looks great at the large size but totally loses its theme in the smaller ones and you'll find that there is an optimum zone for your fabric where it looks best this next exercise is also with pattern but we're going to use our template differently place the template on your fabric and take a look at it up close like one foot away and I want you to back up and look at it from a yard or a meter away and then I want you to look at it from the other side of the room what happens to the pattern as you move away you might find small patterns read like a solid or colors blur together or a secondary pattern begins to appear personally I find this morphing quite interesting and it can add a whole new dimension to your sewing project so before we get to the last exercise let me talk to you about skills show who knew 2020 was going to turn out like this but with Skillshare we can take advantage of our self isolation to build a new skill Skillshare is an online learning community that offers membership with meaning with so much to explore and real projects to create with the support of fellow creatives skilled share empowers you to learn that skill you've always wanted to try in self-isolation I have found my life has slowed down and I have found a lot of comfort in watching watercolor classes there are so many to choose from from all levels of learning Skillshare is incredibly affordable especially when compared with in-person classes and workshops remember those an annual subscription is less than $10 us a month turn this time into an opportunity to explore new skills or deepen existing passions take a look at their class list what you might find just might surprise you perhaps this is a time when you want to learn card-making to help keep you in contact with those you love or try out some new cooking skills or maybe improve your singing skills so you can participate or sing along with all these wonderful videos when life returns to normal these classes are designed to fit into your life you can learn and grow with short classes fill the blocks of time in your busy day whether you'll watch our your morning commute or in a lunch hour or in a waiting room you can continue to move forward without putting your life on hold the first 500 people to click the link below will get to three months of Skillshare premium the last exercise is about the fabric itself fabric has a number of different properties there is the tightness of the weave there's the weight of the yarns the width the fabric there is the grain how well does it run across fabric transparency can you see through it shrinkage is it yarn dyed full and mersive die or is the pattern printed on the top of the fabric there are over 100 types of cotton woven fabric but there's also cotton it's as well so let's just take a piece of fabric and we're going to play with it drape it over your hand brush it your hand across it in several directions and can you see a sheen or a nap scrunch it with your hands lie it over a magazine and see whether you can see the cover through it flip the fabric over is it the same print on the back as it is on the front or is it white pull a couple of threads across the grain is the grain straight are the yarns the same color and now you may be asking why are you doing all this you can see that not all Cotton's are the same when you take a look up close and personal with your fabrics the tighter the weave the sharper the needle you'll need the heavier the fabric the stronger the needle you'll need and when that fabric is folded into a seam the heavier fabrics will take up more space so when you're sewing that quarter inch seam that line is going to move from left to right depending on how heavy that fabric is if the grain is not straight you're going to need to straighten it before sewing and if it's off by 4 inches at the top it's gonna be off by 4 inches at the bottom and when you straighten it means a loss of a quarter yard so we all know that there's a transparency associated with white I'm often surprised at how other fabrics such as that light can will also be transparent some batting's and some linings will change the color of that fabric you may have a range of Cotton's in your stash different weights different types have different shrinkage rates now just a couple of final notes here it's best to do these exercises in small bursts the more you practice the easier don't be and don't be anxious to be perfect right away this is about good better best and that of course comes with time finally we all have a personal colors up which means we have a tendency to buy the same colors in the same zone in the same pattern over and over again so you may find that your stash doesn't have a full gamut of colors so as you gain your fabric confidence be sure to use your critical eye to expand or fill in your range or simply stop and say I've got this color covered so if you want to download any of the free handouts you can find them on my website I'll put a link in the notes below I'd just get a done quilts I've prepared a playlist which I'm going to put here which has more on color theory if you haven't seen that series already so if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you have any questions please put them in the notes below don't forget to subscribe and hit that bell besides the subscribe button so you'll be notified when I make new videos you can also find me on Facebook and Instagram and just get it done quilts so take care and I'll see you next time

Channel: Just Get it Done Quilts

Views: 121,241

Rating: 4.968112 out of 5

Keywords: quilting fabric, just get it done quilts, quilting tutorial, color theory, what fabric do I choose

Id: 4yILz5v9hT8

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 16 2020