Thursday 2 February 2017

Pantone Colour of the Year 2017 is green

 - A post about colour, specifically green, followed by technical steps how to use Pantone's (digital) colour codes -

Anyone who even slightly knows me, should realise that I am not a follower of fashion at all.

I find it hard to buy clothes for myself, because I like my clothes to suit me whether they are in fashion or not. I am judging clothes as much by style and colour, as by shape. Read: I like my comfort. Don't get me wrong, I do like to look nice, but when the current fashion is for high heels, I will not buy shoes. If fashion dictates squint inducing prints, I am buying plain shirts. And when shops are full of items in yuk yellow, or bad brown, I will search further. Maybe I am just fussy!

However, when it comes to fabric for quilts, it is a completely different matter! 
Deep COLOURS, prints large and small, soft LOW VALUE, and gentle accents, I like them ALL!!
 Though maybe not all in the same project...

With the start of 2017, I came across Pantone's new "Colour of the Year", which is a soft green called

GREENERY

Now, I have not used green very often in my quilting work - although for a while now I have a soft spot for a yellowy lime green which goes with almost anything... And I have enough green fabrics lying around to make a quilt or two, so I am making plans...
I think the 2017 Pantone colour is quite an easy one to work with. Soft, gentle, though still colourful enough.

I am thinking a low contrast quilt with greys...
Or a high contrast one using deep purples or blues...
A monochrome with only greens and white...

Plenty of ideas!

And while I am pondering what quilt to make with my green fabrics, I should show you two pouches I recently made, which actually were... (mostly) green! A bit brighter than Greenery, but not that far off...



For this last pouch I experimented with some scraps of Bosal in R-Form which Cathy Ewbank kindly sent to me to try out. I have to order some for myself now...

Colour codes for digital use

- read on if you want to know how you can use Pantone's colour codes digitally. I won't blame you if you want to skip it! -

If you would like to use "Greenery" in your digital quilt designs (I use EQ7, but I'm sure it can be used elsewhere), or colour the text in your blog posts (like I did above), read on. I found it is actually quite easy.
I found this method when I followed a link in the recent EQ7 Do you EQ newsletter, leading me to this BLOG POST. It shows how to find the RGB colour recipe for Greenery on the Pantone website, and how to use it to add that exact colour to your EQ7 colouring palette.

But you can use this method elsewhere, too! And with ALL the many colours in the Pantone website!

* How to find the colour codes for "Greenery":

1. go to the Pantone website
2. click on FIND A PANTONE COLOUR
3. enter Greenery in "ENTER A PANTONE COLOR NAME OR NUMBER" and <SUBMIT>
4. click on the colour chip you want to use (if you want to limit yourself to colours that are printed on cotton, limit yourself to ones with a code TCX)
5. you have found the RGB and HEX/HTML codes for Greenery!
See below how to use them...

*How to find the colour codes for ANY Pantone colour:

1. go to the Pantone website
2. click on FIND A PANTONE COLOUR
3. click on a colour close to the one you want in "SELECT YOUR COLOR" and <SUBMIT>
4. click on the colour chip you want to use (if you want to limit yourself to colours that are printed on cotton, limit yourself to ones with a code TCX)
5. you have found the RGB and HEX/HTML codes for your colour!
See below how to use them...

*how to add the colour to your EQ7 palette:

- see the EQ7 BLOG POST using the RGB code

*how to change text colour in Blogger:

To make it easy to change the colour of your text without too much HTML knowledge:
6. select the text you want to change the colour of
7. change the colour to any other than black (click on the fat underlined A at the top bar, and choose any colour)
8. click on HTML
9. find your word (type CTRL-F and type in your word if you have trouble finding it)
10. just before your word you will see
<span style="color: #xxxxx;">
where xxxxx is the HTML code for the current colour of your text (it will not really be xxxxx).
11. change #xxxxx to the HEX/HTML code of the colour you have chosen - #88B04B for greenery (you can select and COPY - PASTE from the Pantone page)
12. switch back to Compose in Blogger, and there you have it!

Now quickly back to sewing, of course! Keep making your world a colourful place!

Sandra