Colour My World Challenge

colour wheel
One of my goals this year is to learn more about colour and value so I set myself a Colour My World Challenge, where I do a small project/block/mini quilt of 14" by 14" using a different colour each month. Others were interested in joining in so here we are, cheering each other on.

You are more than welcome to join us too. Here are the guidelines for the challenge. They are pretty loose because this is very much a personal challenge.

1) This is a fun experiment with colour. You interpret the colour as you wish - modern, traditional, appliqué, paper piecing, piecing, art/surface design, add embellishments if you like, thread paint -- it's all good!

2) Each month will focus on a different colour. You are welcome to do all or just some of the colours - it's up to you. You are also welcome to go back and do a colour from an earlier month and link up (the linky parties will be open for 2012).

Here is the outline for the year:

January - Red info and Red challenge linky party
February - Purple info and Purple challenge linky party
March - Black info and Black challenge linky party
April - Yellow info and Yellow challenge linky party
May - Cyan/Aqua info and Cyan challenge linky party
June - Brown info and Brown challenge linky party
July - Pink info and Pink challenge linky party
August - White info and White challenge linky party
September - Orange info and Orange challenge linky party
October - Grey info and Grey challenge linky party
November - Blue info and Blue challenge linky party
December - Green info and Green challenge linky party

3) Size: Keep it fairly small. I wouldn't do blocks smaller than 8" because you may find that you could be working with really small pieces. I also wouldn't go larger than 24" because that's a lot of space to fill each month and I'm sure you have other projects vying for your attention! But hey, if you want to make mug rugs for this, go right ahead -- these are just guidelines! I'm going to do 14" squares because I think that's a manageable size -- it's big enough to try different things, but it's small enough to get done in a month and be incorporated into a quilt if I like how the pieces are turning out.

4) Finishing: You can also finish or not finish the edges however you like. I will sandwich and quilt my challenges, but you may choose just to do the top. I also will not be finishing my edges because I may be making it into a quilt-as-you-go-quilt.

5) Other colours: Some people are probably wondering if you can include other colours into the month's challenge colour. For example: If you want to explore the relationship between the challenge colour and other colours, go right ahead. Try to make sure that the challenge colour is the colour that is most dominant though.

6) I'll put up a linky party one the last day of the month so that we can share what we've done and learn from each other's experience.

As you can see, this challenge is quite open to interpretation. Make it yours and do what you think you would like. I suspect that some months, I will love my piece and other months, it may look like something my old cat used to vomit up. But even if that happens, I'm sure I'll have learned something about the colour and if worst comes to worst, I can cut up the ones I don't like into mug rugs or placemats (imagine the conversation that would generate at the dinner table!). I can even try again, if I like.

If you are keen to do this challenge too, but don't know where to start, here are a few ideas to get the creative juices going:
  • Check out my first post on this challenge for great colour resources.
  • Pick one fabric in the challenge colour and use black, white and grey or other colours of thread to see the effect they have on the challenge colour.
  • Try a value exercise by picking seven (or more or less) fabrics in the value range for the challenge colour.
  • Pick something that is the challenge colour and interpret that in your block.
  • Do a Google search for images in that colour.
Colour Resources:

As a fun marker, I took the Online Colour Challenge to gauge how well I see colour. There is a wealth of information online and in books about colour and colour theory. Here are a few that I've been checking out:
Hope you join me in this fun experiment! I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Be fearless, learn and have fun!
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