It's Not Easy Being Green

Green is the color of nature. We see an incredible variety of shades of green every day. But it has never been an easy color to obtain in dyeing cotton.

Dyers had to overdye blue and yellow to obtain green cottons as in this detail of a mid-century quilt,  and then it generally shifted due to light and washing, giving us lime green or teal greens. A true green---not aqua, not chartreuse---was hard to find.

So when reliable dyes finally became available about 1950 people

seemed to welcome a bright grassy green. I remember it very well.

Linda still has this dress she made forty years ago featuring that particular shade.

You can make one too now from my Old-Fashioned Calicoes line from Moda.

The color scheme when these first came out was primary: grass green, canary yellow, a red a little on the orangey side and navy blue.

Here's a period quilt---minimalistic with a lot of white.

The look---as well as the green---is back.

My friend Georgann has been finding many uses for the new/old green calicoes.

She thought it would be the perfect border for her vegetable quilt.

Georgann Eglinski,

 Eat Your Veggies. Quilting by Lori Kukuk.

And she was right.

She's been collecting vegetables

Yum, Swiss chard.