Page 18 - The Digital Cloth Issue 7

This wasn’t an easy task; but it
was something you learned to do
very well.
Most styles use a multicolored
print fabric as the main fabric
and a solid color fabric to
complement it. Then there were
the trims - lace, bindings,
ribbons, and others. For each
material you chose, you had to
get matching threads. Therefore,
in order to make an outfit look
pretty, you needed to do a lot of
color coordination.

As a teenage girl in my family,
just like other teenager girls, my
job was to run these errands for
the women in the family – my
mother and my six aunties. I’ll
be sent to the store with a photo
(sometimes a rough sketch, or
a verbal description) of a dress
they wanted made for them.
Then, I’ll have to make all those
color decisions so that I could
purchase the supplies and bring
them to their favorite
seamstress.
At the time, I didn’t realize the
value of what I was doing.
However, looking back now, I
know that this is how I developed
an understanding of how colors
work together.
In the United States, I discovered
and fell in love with art quilting.
Now, I use the same color
concepts I learned as a teenager,
in my artworks. I set up my color
schemes to have a primary color,
a secondary color and accent
colors.
In the beginning years of
working with textiles, I took
workshops in fabric dyeing and
color theory. After that, I spent
years hand dyeing my own
fabrics for my artworks.