Hi I'm Sarai with Seamwork and welcome to week four of five weeks of wardrobe planning tips.
So last week we shared five tips for incorporating colors and prints into your handmade wardrobe
and today we're going to share one more way that you can build a color palette and that's by using
the principles of color theory. So these tips are drawn from our class, which is called Design Your
Wardrobe and if you're not already familiar with it, Design Your Wardrobe is a program that we have
that's available for free to our members and it walks you through the process of designing your
own personalized collection of sewing projects for a season. So it has worksheets and creative
activities, there's a planner included, and we have a private community so you can share your progress
with other people and you get to watch a video lesson every day. So check out the description
below if you want to learn more about that. But if you've ever seen a color wheel and
you've wondered what it was for, or maybe how you could use it in your own creative process,
this is the video for you. So Taylor's gonna share some basic color theory principles to
help you plan out your sewing projects and create a palette that you really really love.
Did you ever take any color theory classes in school? You might not have learned much
about the color wheel, but there are some basic color theory principles that can really help
you shop for fabric, combine colors, and find colors that work for your wardrobe. I'm Taylor
and I'm the product manager here at Seamwork and I love thinking about color.
When you know how to sew your own clothes, you can pick out any color you like to sew
them in, but that means it's also really easy to get stuck on color. How can you decide what
colors work for your wardrobe? I want to help make fabric shopping a little easier for you.
So before we get into some basic color theory, let's start with the color wheel. You've probably
seen the color wheel, which maps out all the colors and how they relate to each other. The color wheel
has primary colors - red, blue, and yellow and the secondary colors, which are a mix of primary colors,
like purple, green, and orange. It also has tertiary colors, which fall in between. For example, you'll
find a blue violet, which has more blue in it than it has red, which are both primary colors.
In this video, I will explain some ways that you can use the color wheel
to pick out fabric to sew with. Remember this is just an introduction to color theory in general,
there's so much to the color wheel in general and there's a lot to learn.
I think when it comes to choosing colors for your wardrobe you should really pick the colors
that you're drawn to and that you feel good in. Use these ideas of places to start. Let's do it.
So we're starting with cool tones and warm tones. These are the first color theory
terms you'll see in any wardrobe guide. Fashion designers are always talking about what cool
tones are and what warm tones are. Basically any color can be cool or warm, it's subjective because
everyone sees colors differently. Let's simplify it on the color wheel. Typically
blues and greens and purples are considered cool. Yellows and oranges and reds are considered warm.
But again if you dive deeply into color theory, any color can be warm or cool. So how can you tell
if a color is warm or cool? Hold it up to a color that you view as cool, like the blue, or warm like
you see here with the yellow and red. Look at your wardrobe. Do you see more warm tones or cool tones?
This is a great way to see what you are drawn to, which can help you pick out coordinating colors.
So the next one I want to talk about is primary colors. Primary colors are the literal
elementary introduction to color, they produce all the colors. You might have
noticed that here at Seamwork we rely on a primary color palette for our photo samples.
It gives us a lot of room to play and match because most of the time
they really work together on the color wheel. You'll find them here, here, and here.
The next theory that I want to talk about is complementary colors.
These are colors that you'll spot on opposite ends of the color wheel. You can consult a color wheel
to find some of these pairings or just think about your favorite sports team combinations
if you have one, like blue and orange or yellow and purple. Complementary colors are helpful
when you are first learning how to combine colors across the wheel and when you'd like
to branch out into a new color that will go with what you already wear, try complementary colors.
The next thing is monochromatic. You'll often hear people say that they have a monochromatic
palette or that they wear monochromatic outfits. This means that all the colors in
an outfit are actually shades, which is the color and black, tints the color plus white,
and tones the color plus gray. Putting together a monochromatic outfit can really make your colors
feel cohesive and it's sometimes easier than finding totally different colors to wear together.
The next theory I want to talk about is analogous, which is my favorite. To find analogous colors pick
a color and then look next to it on either side of the wheel. This is a really common way
to gather fabrics for a quilt, if you want the colors to sort of flow together, but it works
well for clothes too, especially when you want to layer. I personally default to this a lot of the
time and I think it's sometimes the easiest when you have a more colorful wardrobe to pull from.
Acromatic colors aren't on the color wheel. In color theory these are colors that you don't
see color in so you'll probably recognize them as neutrals. Think black, white, and gray.
Neutrals play a big role in our wardrobes even if you mostly dress in bright colors or prints
having a few basics sewn in neutrals can really bring your closet together.
There you have it, those are just some color theory basics that might help you get started
or might encourage you to go research color theory some more and bring in new ideas to your wardrobe.
I know that some people really like to use their personal features like skin tone, hair, and eye
color to find what colors may work for them. In the 90s it was really popular to "get your colors done,"
you could find your colors through a seasonal color analysis and if that's on something like
that's really interesting to you there are a lot of fun resources linked in the community,
including some articles from Seamwork magazine. I hope you have fun with color and happy sewing!