Colour Cards

Do you have - and use - colour cards in your quilting?  They are a great resource to have on hand when choosing colours for a quilt, especially for online shopping.  The cards are available for purchase from most manufacturers for their on-going lines.

I have two colour cards for Mirror Ball Dot.  The first was for the original release of this very popular fabric.

It was updated last year when Michael Miller released new colours, so I had to have that one too!

Fairy Frost is an extensive line with lots of colours;  the card is really more like a book.

It's fun to flip through the pages, and be able to feel the actual swatches of fabric.

I also have colour cards for threads from different manufacturers, which allows me to match thread to fabric without guessing.

The one from Wonderfil flips open like a fan.

Earlier this year, I used Hoffman Watercolour Handpaints in the Stuffle and In The Summertime and having a colour card made the fabric selection much easier.

 When this colour card is folded out, it's 85" of gorgeousness.

Sadly, these beautiful displays of colour get folded up and tucked away.  Leave it to Hoffman to come up with a BRILLIANT way to show their entire 1895 Watercolour line.  This digitally printed Watercolor Palette cotton panel contains all 372 colours.

It is so pretty on its own that all I added was a bit of quilting to make a wallhanging for my sewing room.  I bordered and bound it with some of my favourite watercolours.

I simply stitched straight lines around each colour, and then added some squiggly lines vertically between each section to make the little pillows pop out.

It's fun to read the colour names, and ponder the thought behind each.  There are visual representations for April, Thanksgiving, Breeze, London...and Peter!

On the Hoffman website, you can find this pattern for a quilt made using the panel by  Linda Fitch; it's beyond clever. The panels are available from Mrs. Pugsley's Emporium, and I understand are selling quickly.

This is one colour card that won't get folded up and tucked out of sight.