Tuesday Tool Tip: Paint Chips

Why the heck would I want paint chips?  Well, because color matching isn't just for your painter.  Paint chips are a great way to pick colors and to help others buy fabrics that match a specific set of colors.

Bonnie Hunter recently announced the colors for her winter mystery quilt.  She announced the colors by paint chips available from Lowes Home Improvement.  This allows everyone to pick fabrics that match the paint chip instead of matching the display on their phone or a print out or some other less than precise method.  You could send two people to the fabric store with a list that says "pink, teal, green and yellow" and you won't get two with the same shades.  You might not even get complimentary colors.

I picked up the chips Bonnie recommended and wrote down how much of each I would need.

Then I cut them apart so I wouldn't have to carry around anything more than the chips I needed.  This picture doesn't include the black and white fabrics that are also needed for this mystery quilt.

Then I decided I didn't like those colors and would be going in a completely different direction.  The magic of these paint chips is that sometimes you can find a collection like this one.  Where someone with much better color theory than you have has already picked some great colors to put together.  Something about this collection really caught my attention.  I think it has a very modern feel with the fun colors.  No pinks and blues for this girl.  Oh, no.  We're going off-road with this one.  This will test my ability to substitute colors in a quilt that is a complete mystery.

It may turn out to be a total disaster.  I don't know.  I won't know until sometime in December or January.  I do know that since I'm using the Quilters Quest Shop Hop to pick up the majority of these fabrics I won't be changing my mind half-way through.  I'm committed.

Do you play with color when making quilts?  Do you like to challenge yourself by substituting unexpected colors?