A Trip to the Eye Doctor and the Color Purple

Today has been a doozy of a day.

I’ve never exaggerated about my age in this blog.  I am 53 years-old.  And 53 is what it is…middle aged and some issues are beginning to crop up in the getting-older body.  While my mind still thinks it’s a 20-something, my body is sayin’ it ain’t cashing that check.

Today was one of those check-bouncing days.  I have horrible eyesight and wear contacts or glasses every waking hour.  Today I had to go see my optometrist, an energetic 20-something woman whose body isn’t even writing checks yet.  The good news is no glaucoma, no macular degeneration, and no sign of cataracts. 

The bad news is I’m still blind as a bat.

That and my pupils are still dilated to the point you can’t see hardly any blue at all.  If I had been pulled over by the police at any given time today, I would have promptly been asked to pee in a cup.

However, my eye doctor was very intrigued about quilting.  When she asked if I wore reading glasses in addition to my contacts, I mentioned I wore a magnifier when I appliqued.  Which brought up questions about what that was and what all quilting entails.

Moral of my morning appointment:  She said all quilters need to take care of their eyesight.  She was happy with my explanation of Ott lights and magnifiers and cautioned me (as well as every other quilter) to be careful with their eyes.  Rest them after about 20-30 minutes of hand sewing.  Make sure the lighting is not just adequate, but really, really good. 

Of all the senses we use, as quilters, sight is really precious.

I hadn’t intended on sharing all of that, but as this week’s blog is on color, I did think it was pertinent. 

I love picking out fabric for my quilts. I love color and design.  And quilters, as artists, are sensitive to color.  There are the pure colors – which are the primary colors and all the colors that are made by mixing any two of the primary colors.  Tints are made when white is added to any color in varying amounts.  Tints are colors such as apricot, pink, lavender, mint green, robin egg blue, and light blue. Shades are created when black is added to a pure color.  With the addition of black, colors such as olive, avocado, rust, brown, cranberry, maroon, navy, emerald green, teal, dark blue, and dark violet are created. 

Tones are made when a pure color, tint, or shade has been grayed.  If the graying is minimal, the effect is subtle.  The color, tint, or shade is slightly softened.  If the graying is more extreme, the color itself appears gray with just a hint of the color.  Beige, tan, rose, mauve, plum, heather, dusty teal, bluish gray, and salmon are tones. 

All of these colors, tints, shades, and tones are wonderful and you only have to glance outside of your window to see how Mother Nature uses these in a grand harmonic gesture.  However, there are two colors that are particularly intriguing to me as a quilter.

These two colors are lime green (a mix of yellow and green) and purple (a mix of red and blue).

 

When I first started quilting back in 1985, it was a pretty hard and fast “suggestion” (because there really are no rules in quilting), that a quilt needed to be a balance of warm and cool colors.  The warm colors of course are the reds and oranges and yellows.  The cool colors are the greens and the blues.

Current quilting has kind of blown that “suggestion” out of the water.  The 2013 and 2015 APQS winners had yellows and oranges as their background fabrics, fully nullifying the cool/warm balance rule.  While cool colors were used in these quilts, the overwhelming color scheme was warm. 

And you know what?  That’s fine.  The quilts are beautiful.

However, getting back to the lime green and purple, the reason I like them so much is that they play on both teams. 

Place purple next to a cool color, such as blue, and it looks cool. 

 

But watch what happens when you place it next to a warm color such as red…

 It heats up immediately.

The same thing happens to lime green.  Next to a cool color, it’s cool.

 

Next to a warm color, it’s warmer.

I think it’s even more noticeable in batiks, where the colors undulate.

 

Moral of this story – while purples and lime greens are great to play with and are the most versatile of colors – they do make placement of them a little tricky.  Please note that if you’re using them as a cool color, make sure they’re placed next to cool colors.  If it’s used as a warm color, make sure it’s next to warm colors.  Otherwise, they’re not going to do the job you want to do.

And wonkiness will ensue. 

Love and Stitches, 

Sherri