For anyone who works with “other people’s” colors (that is, NOT painters and people who make their own colors). The book can help move people from a quilt made with 5 or 10 “matching” colors purchased at JoAnne’s to quilts made from 100 or more; IMO, those quilts are MUCH livelier and sparkly. I found the computer-adjusted pictures of quilts made from “exact match” vs “100+” fabrics helpful.
Color Confidence helped explain to my mind why I find so much polymer clay work slightly flat; in most cases, there are <10 colors in a p.c. cane and none of the gentle variety and shading that one finds in the kind of quilts I really like. Same is true for intarsia and Fair Isle knitting.
If you’re already working with > 50 fabrics per artwork, you’re probably doing this automatically, in which case Color Confidence for Quilters might offer a new way to organize your color thinking. If you’re in the “5-10 fabrics is enough” club and want to get out, or if you believe that decorator or SIL who said, “if you mix more than four patterns in a room, it will look too busy”, the book offers a safely structured way to stretch your creativity.
Kaffe Fassett must be doing something similar, but I can’t recall him ever discussing his process in print. Karen K. Stone writes about her own color-selection process in her book, but it might not be quite as accessible as the method Jinny presents.
Four stars not five because I don’t need to own it; read, grasp the concept, and go. OTOH, if you didn’t spontaneously knit your own Fassett knock-off from your own stash, it might be a book you turn to often to keep the color muscles loose and flexible.
