Interesting Experiences With Color ...

New curtains are up in one more room.

I had a houseful of company in the last few days and one of the guest rooms still didn't have the drapes up: but that was remedied in the middle of their visit, when Mr. Pink arrived with the new window treatments.

One of the challenges of working with fabrics is that you usually start with a little sample slightly larger than a postage stamp and you just have to imagine what it will look like when you put 20 yards of it up on a window. (Note to fabric companies: you could remedy this if you made "memo samples" almost a yard and charged a fee for them.)

In this case, I was trying to bring some lavender/purple hues into the room, so I chose a wisteria-and-cream check in silk and linen from Robert Allen. It was fairly neutral and that fits in with my philosophy that if you have to live with something for a long time--this may or may not apply to people--it is often best to avoid the flamboyant.

The check looks very buttoned down, doesn't it?

In any case the one thing I didn't think about was how the eye perceives a very small check: the eye doesn't see a small check well and the two colors--wisteria and cream--blend together to make a sort of gray. It is a wisteria-colored gray. But the optical illusion surprised me. I still like the drapes, though.

The rug is the one from Kazakhstan I bought from the Bukhara Rug company on the Internet. The yurt door (against the wall) is from Kyrgyzstan. Doesn't everyone have a yurt door?

I could have chosen a more dramatic, and much larger, wisteria and white check, and I think that would have looked good too. Robert Allen has a pretty one in the same collection--Beacon Hill/Casa Loma--but it was all silk and I wasn't sure how that would wear, over time, in such a sunny window. Sunlight is tough on natural fabrics.

Small check, large check. Both have their good points.

I think either of the checks would have been fine in the room. But the more neutral one will probably last longer. And will be easier to decorate around as I make changes in the years ahead.

But I continue to be amazed and how color and fabric can morph and change before your eyes. Perhaps that is why it is so interesting.

I had a gathered valance made in the small check for the bow window. It has cellular shades on its windows.

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