Archive for October, 2008

Watercolor stash builders

admin October 28th, 2008

Yesterday I gave tips on selecting watercolor fabrics.  For those of you who would still rather not pick out your own fabrics, I have added 3 sizes of “jelly rolls” to the pattern section of my website.  These are bundles of 2″ strips ranging from light to dark with everything in between.  Having the right fabrics makes a difference in the success of your design.

Watercolor fabric selection

admin October 27th, 2008

Saturday I taught the Holiday Tree class in Salado, Texas at A Sewing Basket.  It is a wonderful shop with lots of different fabrics and friendly staff.  Anyway, we reviewed do’s and don’ts on buying watercolor fabrics.

Some of the do’s:

Size: Medium to large scale

Shapes: Curvy designs like flowers, fruit, paisleys

Color: Fabrics with 3 or more  colors

Some of the don’ts:

Size: avoid prints that are too small, calicos

Shape: avoid straight lines, geometric lines, strips, plaids, dots

Color: avoid tone-on-tone

The reasoning is that the eye needs to move from one 2″ square to the next.  Your 2″ square should never be small enough to show the entire design because that will stop the eye.  The goal is to have an image that looks like a painting.