One of the great joys of quilting is pulling together a color palette for your next project, and we all have our favorites that maybe we fall back on too easily. One of the easiest ways to start to mix colors together is to use its compliment. For any color, the complimentary color is it’s opposite on the color wheel; red and green, yellow and violet, blue and orange are all complimentary color combinations. Sometimes though we want something a little more complex, a little more depth and range in our quilt, and another great approach to colors is to use their split compliments.
A split compliment involves three colors, and starts with compliments but then moves to either side of the first colors compliment.
If we start with red, we can immediately look across the color wheel and find it’s compliment, green. Now to find the split compliment go to either side of green and you will find blue-green and yellow-green. This is your split-complimentary palette; red – yellow-green – blue-green.
Let’s start again with another primary color, blue. If we look opposite the color wheel we will find orange, and looking to either side we see yellow-orange and red-orange. So our split-complimentary color scheme is blue – yellow-orange – red-orange.
So if you haven’t guessed by now the block lotto pattern this month is going to be the Ohio Star. I love this block for its simplicity and when paired with white and bright colors, you can easily create an updated traditional quilt with a modern flair. We will again be sticking with Kona Solids White for our white fabrics. The other fabrics can be from your stash, but here are the guidelines please:
- Star points a primary or secondary color: red, orange, yellow, green blue or violet.
- The two inside colors can be in any order, but they have to be on the inside and a split compliment to the color on the points. If you’re unclear, this is what I did for the block examples above.
- Use one solid, one subtle texture, and one print. The print can be any pattern, big or small, but if you are using to represent yellow-orange for example…it should look like yellow-orange when you step away or squint at it.
Finally, here is the tutorial that I use for my Ohio Star block from The Seasoned Homemaker and it includes a video from Missouri Star Quilt Company. Your block should be 12-1/2″ x 12-1/2″ when you are finished.
Have fun and let me know how are you doing with The Splits!
