Matching Thread Colours Successfully
My latest piece of embroidery that I have created is based on rocks. I've long been fascinated with the colours and textures of rocks and with a husband interested in geology, we have quite a collection of interesting pieces of stone, rocks and pebbles that we have collected over the years. He's interested in them from a geological point of view whereas I just fall in love with the colours and textures of them.
When I had the idea of doing a series of embroideries based on rocks, I wanted to include the actual stone as well. I was aiming to interpret each rock in hand stitching and having this as a background. It wasn't until I started to pick out some threads for my first sample piece, that I realised the number of different colours in one small stone. Initially it just looked brown and grey, when actually on closer inspection there were tones of pink, pale grey, rusty brown and even sparkles of silver.
The ability to look closely and see more than just the initial colours is the key to success. We so often look at things and think we know what we've seen, whereas we probably miss 50% or more of what is actually there. It’s this ability to view beyond the obvious that gives artists and creatives the ability to see more than the ordinary person.
How do you make sure that you see all these extra colours and textures?
Firstly, you need to look!
This sounds really obvious but actually when we first look at anything we don't see as much as we think we do. So you need to really look at the stone, turn it over in your hands, study it and actually see what is there (not what you think is there!). Does it sparkle in the light, as my stone did – something I hadn’t initially noticed? Is it just a drab grey or can you see other colours in there hidden away? Don't be content to just go with the obvious; make sure you have really analysed it in detail.
Look at the amount of colours I picked out in these stones. The first one in particular looks cream with two tones of grey. However, when I really looked and analysed it I found eleven colours!
Try out lots of different threads next to the stone.
The colours that we think are a close match initially may look completely different when put against the actual stone. I lay on lots of threads (not in their skeins) but as a single strand to see how well the colours match.
Always work in daylight.
This is the MOST important point I want to make. It's impossible to match colours properly in electric lighting or at night. You really need to be working in very good natural light, ideally right beside a window to see the true colours. In these two photos look at the difference in the colours when taken in natural daylight (left) and electric light (right).
Electric lighting distorts colours by adding a yellow tint and you will find if you choose colours this way at night when you look at them in the morning in natural light they may be way off.
What if I can’t find the correct colour of thread?
Sometimes when choosing embroidery threads it is impossible to match the colour completely. Anchor/ DMC don't produce every single shade or tint that is possible and you may never find the one that is just a perfect match for your particular project.
The way to overcome this is to mix different threads together to achieve a closer match. Just like you do when you're blending paint or coloured pencils, you need to mix and blend colours and you can do this just as successfully with threads. In areas of my sample embroidery I took a single thread from the natural colour and the grey, lightly twisted them together and used that as a single sewing thread.
The mixture gave a better colour match and also added more interest and texture. When embroidering this way, there is an element of randomness as sometimes the grey thread is dominant and sometimes the lighter thread is.
I use this technique a lot for blending and it works particularly well with long and short stitch which I used for the majority of this piece. The closer your two colours are to each other, the more subtle the shading will be. You could mix three or more colours together depending on how many strands of thread you have chosen to use in your project.
So, the key points to try when colour matching for embroidery:
- Look (and I mean really look)
- Lay individual strands of thread onto your source material
- Always work in daylight
- Consider blending two or more threads together