Alex Anderson

How do you blend the values of colors to create a quilt that goes from light to dark and vice versa?

Alex: If you look at my quilts, blending would not be the word that describes them. They're pretty "in your face." I don't worry about things like that. I believe that if one green is good, use all the greens in the world. If one blue is good, use all the blues in the world. As far as blending from one color to another, forget it. Let Joan Wolfram do that. She's the artist.

Talking about not being able to see the under colors, I have a really cute story. I love Amish quilts. When I was writing one of my books, I decided to do a diamond quilt and a bar quilt. I thought, "I'll use Joan's color tool so I can have some unusual color combinations that are not the standard or norm a person might think of."

Her color tool was new. I got it and I was so excited. It was beautifully quilted. I made a diamond quilt and a groovy little bar quilt using her tool as a guide. She's a very good friend of mine. In fact, we go away every January on a retreat together. I whipped out my two quilts. I said, "Joan, look. I used your tool. Now I did it right!" She said, "No, it's still not right."

I just don't worry about blending. If you're not good at color selection, just use more. Use more and more and more. Then if you make a boo-boo, it doesn't matter. Just don't put it smack in the center of the quilt. Nobody will know the difference. That's my tip.

Happy Quilting!