I spent my sewing time this weekend doing some exercises from Josef Albers’ Interaction of Color. There is something very relaxing about playing around with color for its own sake without worrying about how it might feed into a specific pattern or creating some larger finished project. … though of course, in the end the exercises sparked tons of other ideas.
I wanted to sew but I didn’t want to fuss over print combos and lots of different measurements. I like the idea of improvising but don’t 100% love the results I seem to get with improv blocks. I wanted to open up some space in my brain but I didn’t really want to think too hard. These exercises (executed in fabric instead of paper) were just the thing.
And you know that weird pile of random solids you have? The one about which you sometimes wonder, why did I buy these colors, and will I ever use them? This is a perfect way to use them up.
I wrote up some instructions for the simple block that I made based on Chapter 4, which is all about experimenting with how colors influence one another. Click here for the pattern, and if you try the exercise, let me know how it goes!