Posted by dravon in Education & Instruction | Comments Off on Embroidery Color Blending Oopsie
Embroidery Color Blending Oopsie
It’s always fun to take classes, especially from teachers who explain things clearly!! This past weekend I took a workshop taught by the owner of Balboa Threadworks on blending colors within embroidery digitizing. In that class, I had an A-HA! moment.
Last month I was working with a coral fabric, trying to put a red name on it hoping for the name to pop. Alas, no popping. In fact, the name practically vanished! I was puzzled as to why. I could see that it DID, but didn’t know WHY. I found out why in this class.
Red blend with red. As soon as the teacher said this, the problem project immediately popped into my mind and I knew (finally) what the problem was. It didn’t matter how fat or big or pure red I tried to make the letters, red will always blend with reds. In this case, the red thread just blended with all the red that made up the coral base fabric — making the name sort of fade into the background rather than standing out.
According to the color theory the teacher used in class, I’d want a color on the opposite side of the color wheel if I wanted the name to just screamingly pop out. That would be *consults wheel* a color in the turquoise range or family.
Well, it certainly does stand out more. Not sure it’s prettier, but it is more visible. Lesson learned! When I’m embroidering, I’ll have to actively take the colors within base fabric into consideration when I’m choosing the colors of the thread – and also be aware of the mix of colors within the thread.
I’m currently working on digitizing artwork with lots of shading, so beyond finally figuring what last month’s nagging oopsie was, everything that I learned in this workshop will be directly applied to the upcoming project. The class couldn’t have been better timed! I’ll share the progress as I go and maybe my mistakes will help you understand something better. If so, I’d love to hear it! Experience may be the best teacher, but she sure is a witch.
Be sure to like the post and share it on your Facebook or Twitter! Until we meet again, Happy Sewing!
– Dravon
