Hints for Color choosing

手まりプロジェクトのための配色のヒント

Collected thoughts from the TalkTemari crew.. if you have a good one to add drop me a note!

I find that I put out the colours I choose and then walk past them for a few days and the mistakes seem to take care of themselves. It becomes obvious
when things dont work. The other rule is to not change too much. Try to use tones of the same colour and then if you need more variation just change a
little at a time. We often try to just get to complicated..... Good luck. Leis
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One of the best things I do for color inspiration is take a walk. It is amazing what you see when you start really paying attention to the colors around us. I have come to the conclusion that there is every color is a neutral. I can seem to find every weird color combination in a garden or sunset, and it all looks great! A botanical garden or even a mall can produce all kinds of inspiration. Blessings, Nicole
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My grandmother used to say "God's colors never clash" and all my experiences tell me she's right. For me, we're entering one of the best times of the year for looking at colors, early and mid Autumn. Not only because of the turning of the leaves but because of what the changing temperatures do to all things. The first light frosts will burnish many colors. Something that was once a dark, summer green acquires an olive or loden green cast. There comes an amazing world of browns and grays whose original hues are now just a shadow but still present. Autumn is constantly supplying contrasts. Those dark maroon leaves falling against the most intensely pink asters, burnt orange leaves against rich lavender mums, warm golds against the deep blue skies of Fall. I always spend a lot of September and October in my gardens so there is little time for temari but I always make note of color combinations I've liked. When I'm really organized I'll collect threads that closely match the colors I'm intrigued with and bundle them for use later. It's an amazing time of the year.
Eric (Kentucky)
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Let your kids pick the colors! I did a bin temari with 5 balls in it and had my daughter pick out 5 colors that I used in different amounts on all 5 balls. It turned out really nice. They weren't colors I would have picked, but the finished product was great! Anne W.
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Another way too pick out colors in nature is to look at bird books and even other wild animals. Have you every noticed how an orange and black tiger has
a pink nose and looks GOOD? Anne W.
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Speaking of color combinations,Japanese fabric and obis and kimonos would yield great ideas.
Pat in VA
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I've been reading the postings about colors with great interest as I do not feel I have a lot of color confidence and do many balls with the same "safe" colors!
I've been working on a webpage for a local group and have been struggling to learn about colors on webpages. I found a nifty website that may be of interest to temari makers as well. It's at www.visibone.com. Down toward the bottom of the page he's got a "Colorlab" which is a colorwheel of websafe colors that is clickable. You can then see colors side by side and choose all different shades and hues of colors to see which ones look good together. I guess this might be useful for quilters too. Happy stitching! Janet in Fresno
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Eric (when he was down in Birmingham) has a wonderful sense of color that sounds very much near your own. Eric and I actually pushed each other in our choice of combinations as we kind of liked the same colors but combined them differently. By each of us seeing the other's combos, we blended those combos into new ones-a really fun way of seeing things in a new perspective. From that gathering, I think I did one of my favorite balls, a golden-brown, green and purple. Sounds terrible but then nature uses it all the time. Since then, I use the colors I can see in any scene along the roads, on the water or in the woods. I think Nicole also uses this philosophy. National Geographic can be a great inspiration and this is coming from a person who lives and dresses in jewel tones but my temari are totally different...Just think of how many colors are realy in one rock! I do love metallics and blacks to really draw attention to designs and try to get one or the other (or both) somewhere. I too use alot of copper floss-I often will throw one strand metallic floss in with the same color perle just to act as a sparkle of light-but then I am wierd-even have used black patent leather and glow in the dark......
Martine in A

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