JWD Publishing Blog

Hi Everyone,

Have you ever needed to repair a fallen pants hem or skirt hem? Or what about keeping a shirt collar in place or pockets flush? Well, if anything like that has happened to you, there is a new temporary fabric adhesive that goes on in seconds and dries clear. It is called Lapel Stick. Keeping a Lapel Stick handy for those little emergencies is a good idea.

But I’ve been thinking about other uses too and experimenting with it. Guess what? It can be used for more than just fashion emergencies. There are all kinds of tasks this little Lapel Stick can do for quilters.  It can be used just as easily in crafts, sewing, and embroidery too. Think about this:  It can replace baste stitching, pinning, tapes, spray adhesives, and stabilizers. When I was experimenting with it, I was pleased to find it did not gum up my machine or my needles.  It is water soluble too!  You can use Lapel Stick on cotton, blends, leather, wool, linen, and silk. All you do is twist the cap off and apply it. It can’t get any easier than that!

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Welcome back for some extended activities with nature’s favorite color plan—-analogous blues and greens. Do the activities that appeal to you.  Have fun!

1.  First, look at the green-blue analogous span on the color wheel.  Select two different ranges you really like. Make Continue reading the rest of the post »

I was naive when I began creating landscape art so many years ago.  I  thought of colors as static: blue was blue, green was green and that was that. It was no wonder my early landscapes looked flat and insipid. What an awakening it was to find my color assumptions were pretty primitive. Eventually it dawned on me that I had been looking at nature all of my life, but had never really seen it. I began using nature as my color mentor.  I invite you to study nature and use your findings for your quilts, clothing, artwork, interior design, or other project.

Begin studying blues and greens, as they are most prevalent. You’ll notice nature uses these colors to enrich, excite, and create beautiful effects. Below are several examples that should give you experience in really seeing color. In addition, a few images offer examples of  nature’s beautiful analogous color plan.

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Nature has provided us with a palette of colors that are most amazing. I believe Mother Nature’s favorite coloration includes a range of greens and blues intermingled with each other. This is the most dominant color palette in the world. It provides an array of beautiful outcomes and emotive responses from very calming to quite exciting…..and sometimes even astonishing. This coloring makes great quilts, beautiful artwork, and a harmonious interior design.

These enticing colors from the green-through-blue spectrum include chartreuse, yellow-green, spring green, green, blue-green, aqua green, aqua blue, turquoise, cerulean blue, and blue. Today I have taken the liberty to include blue-violet in this range because it has a tendency to want to be in two places at one time. It’s really part of the violet spectrum, but it loves hanging out with these other hues whenever possible. (It’s like a kid who spends as much time playing in the neighbor’s yard as his own yard.) This color span works as beautifully in quilts, art, and other designs as it does in nature. When nature uses this blue-green range, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she uses every color within the total span. It depends on the scene. Sometimes nature’s coloring is very narrow while at other times it’s all encompassing. You can see this gorgeous color range in The Studio Color Wheel (below).

A design made from these closely related colors is called an analogous color plan.  To learn more about analogous color plans and their recommended guidelines, check our blog post Using an Analogous Color Plan.

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Although there is a more scientifically based definition for analogous colors and the analogous color plan than I am offering here, the following definition and information should suffice for the purpose of selecting analogous colors to make beautiful quilts, fabric art, and other designs.

Analogous colors are those colors that are closely related to each other on the color wheel. Looking at the color wheel, you can see how the colors lying close to each other appear related and look beautiful together. When you work with colors that are closely related, you are working analogously—-in an analogous color plan. Nature uses this plan often in her own colorations. Its beauty lies in its sense of harmony created by the close relationships of the colors. For this presentation I have used one section of the color wheel, but you can use any analogous colors that you like for your own quilts or other designs.

Here are a  few guidelines to consider when using an analogous color plan:

1. If you want to use a small color range, use a minimum of three colors. Your design will be better balanced using three colors rather than two or four, because your eyes have a place to rest with an uneven number of colors.  Most often you see analogous colors shown in art books in a combination of three colors. This works, but it is the most limiting of all the analogous options. Consequently, its beauty is not as great as when a wider color range is used. Below is an example of a three-color analogous range:  chartreuse, yellow-green, and spring green.

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It’s summertime and that means swimming at the lake, camping, picnics, baseball, the ice cream man, s’mores, and popsicles!

Here’s a little story to share with you:  One hot summer afternoon at her cabin, Alex Anderson was mulling over what kind of summer quilt she could make that would be fast, cute, and fun. Pondering this question, she treated herself to an ice cream bar. As she was enjoying this little treat, hoping to eat as much of the bar as possible before it melted down her arms, a light bulb went off in her head—-an ice cream/popsicle quilt would be perfect!  As soon as Alex finished eating her ice cream bar, she began doodling ice cream bars/popsicles on napkins  (no drawing paper at the cabin). She had seen some cute 5″ charm pack fabrics and decided to make her popsicles from charm-pack fabrics. She then headed for the closest quilt store. There she found several  great options for fabric, but after much contemplation she settled on a cute refreshing fabric with matching charm-pack fabrics. Here’s the quilt Alex made after enjoying her own popsicle treat that hot summer day:

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