Total Color Tuesday--Splits and Points

Happy election day! Have you voted? 

I looked ahead at how many color harmonies we still had to go in this book, and there are a lot. So the rest of these posts will be looking at two or three at a time. Mostly, those pairing/triplings will be very related color harmonies that are simply variations on each other. These two for this week, however, are two distinct color harmonies.

Splitting the Opposite

Making alien antennae with my color wheel. 'Cause that's how I roll.

This one is a variation on the basic complementary scheme, in which you choose one color and then jump across the color wheel to find its opposite. This time, however, when you find the opposite, you use the color to each side of it rather than using the complementary itself. This way you still get the excitement of the complementary harmony (which tends to be visually energetic), but more interest using more colors.


So, in my case, I started with purple, and then moved across to yellow. If I were to use this scheme, then, I'd be making a quilt with purple, yellow-green, and yellow-orange.


Rummaging through my stash, I came up with an approximation of what that might look like.

I have this wonderful purple print that someday I'll actually use.

In itself, it pretty much encapsulates this color harmonie, although there's some deeper reds and a straight-up yellow in there as well. I know in the past I tried not to cheat like this, but I just don't have a big enough stash to be a purist all the time!

So the green on the left is about as close to yellow-green as my stash gets, and then the yellow-orange on the right is my close-enough there as well. It's a little more yellow than orange, but it's pretty close

Using the Joen Wolfrom 3-in-1 Color Tool was fairly problematic for me again--it leads towards a much tighter mix of colors than what my stash can handle.

But hey, I got to play with chartreuse! (I've heard rumor that it's Frances of Off-Kilter Quilt's favorite color. Tee hee.)


I did actually have something that could be considered chartreuse in my stash. Go figure.

I think I came pretty close on these, didn't I? I'd never make a quilt out of this particular set of fabrics, though. I'd want to work with a wider selection to make this color harmony really sing.

Four Points on a Square

Issue an all points bulletin!

Yep, we're using compass points here, although you could choose any four colors, as long as they're equally distributed around the wheel. Technical term: tetrad. Roll that one out at a party to impress the troops, as my high school history teacher used to say.

This time, of course, you're combining two sets of complementary colors. So you've got some visual pizzazz again, but more variation for interest.

For simplicity's sake I started again with purple and yellow, since that's how I started above. This time, though, you would use the yellow, and then you'd also be using blue-green and red-orange.

I find this an odd combination. I think I'd like it better if I shifted everything one to the right--red-violet, orange, yellow-green, and blue. But that's just me.


I messed and messed and messed with this one, and just couldn't find a combination of fabrics in my stash that would work in the four colors the color wheel indicated.

Here's my best attempt. Ick.

This is one that I'd definitely have to take the color wheel into a quilt shop to find four fabrics that really work well together.






The Wolfrom Wheel (that's got a better ring to it, doesn't it?) actually worked in my favor this time--I liked the particular hues this one indicated together much better.

Violet, aqua green, red, and yellow. I could dig this.

Play time!

Your turn! As usual, link up your blog posts as you play with these color harmonies. Let me know what you think--have you, or would you,actually use either of these types of harmonies in a quilt?