Coloured Cabins - It all starts with the Primary Three

One of the best things I have ever done to help my quilting is to start dyeing my own fabric. It was a real eye-opener for me. I've since dyed hundreds of meters of fabric and love the results each time!

The Primary Three are the 3 basic colours that are the start of the colour wheel. All other hues or colours are mixed from these three. Technically, the primary colours are colours or hues do not come from mixes, but they CAN be mixed to make other colours!!!!

It's the start of a whole new world of colour for us quilters. When we understand these Primary Three, we can then start to really understand how our quilts can come alive.

The Primary Three are RED, YELLOW and BLUE. But that's not the end of it. Depending on the RED you use, the YELLOW and the BLUE, you can create many different colour wheels.

When I dye fabric, I purchase 3 different red dyes (Scarlet, Red and Fuchsia), yellow dyes (golden yellow, bright yellow and yellow) and blue dyes ( royal or slate blue, sky blue and turquoise) to give me an unlimited number of colour wheels.

Bright Primaries are often refered to as FUCSHIA, LEMON or BRIGHT YELLOW and TURQOISE

Medium Primaries are often referred to as RED, YELLOW and ROYAL BLUE

Dark Primaries (in my dyeing practice) are SCARLET, GOLDEN YELLOW and SLATE BLUE

When it comes to your fabrics, try sorting them into these 3 piles. See if you can figure if they are bright primaries, medium primaries or dark primaries.

Which do you like better? What range of primaries do you naturally lean towards in your fabric choices.

I'm planning a hands-on fabric dyeing workshop later this summer. Will keep you posted on dates.