Last week I shared about several upcoming events, one of them being my class offered at Nadelwelt on Color Theory for Quilters. I am super excited about this class becuase I am super excited about color! I think my love of color came from my dad, who finished college with an art degree. I suppose that I've gushed a time or two about my super talented dad, and I remember all those "teachable moments" that he took full advantage of when I was young. He would always sneak in a narration here about contrasting colors, or a comment there to point out a particular color scheme... my life was filled with mini art lessons, painting sessions in our furnace room, and tips on mixing paint colors. While I feel that working with color is very intuitive for me, I realize that perhaps all those times heavily influenced me in the way I approach color now. Since I realize that not everyone has had the advantage of daily art lessons since childhood, my hope is that teaching about what I've learned about color can take some of the guesswork out of picking fabrics for projects... it is my favorite part, you know? So, you may have noticed in my last post, little cards with fabric swatches on them. I decided that this would be the prefect way to play around with fabric combinations without class participants having to travel with their whole stash!?! I've started making cards myself, and I think it can really give you a better understanding of your tastes, likes, and dislikes. Painfully missing from my stash has been, and always will be, red. Kind of hard to believe that a beautiful red chair takes center stage in our living room, huh? But, I think seeing your stash in this way helps to assess what you have and what's missing, and what you "need". Fabric swatch cards are a great way to do a pre-pull before that big explosion that we all know happens... please don't tell me that I am the only one whose room literally looks like a bomb has exploded after the fabric pull has commenced? How many times, have you been fabric shopping, and you've had to manage those loose swatches to find a missing accent fabric OR you ended buying a fabric that you were just certain was a perfect match, only to realize once you got home that you were a couple shades off? These are great to slip in your wallet when you head to your local quilt shop. So, even if your aren't able to make it to Nadelwelt, I thought I would share these little fabric swatch cards that I made... for FREE! They're in English AND in German. Go on... show me your stash!