A color wheel shows the relationships between colors for mixing and matching.
The French once designed toile, pronounced "twahl," by hand on cotton fabric in single colors, such as indigo blue, deep red, brown or purple on a neutral background, usually in beige or white. The designs feature stories, scenes, flowers, animals and events. Meaning "cloth" in French, only the wealthy in France owned toile for their homes and castles. Known today as toile du Juoy, toile adds elegance to your home when you decorate, mix and match toile colors. For the best results, keep it simple.
Instructions
1. Identify the main color of the toile print.
2. Find the toile's main color on a color wheel. Red, blue and yellow represent the primary colors. Combinations of the primary colors create secondary colors like purple, green and orange. The colors sitting next to the main toile color represent the analogous colors, the family of colors with which you can mix and match the toile. If blue represents the toile's main color, match it with a shade of green or violet lying next to the blue shade. These colors lessen the intensity of one another. Limit mixing the main color of toile to no more than two colors of the same family.
3. Match the main toile color with a solid in the same color. For example, if you have a toile pattern in black on white, rather than matching with more black on white toile, match it with something in a solid black to break up the pattern. Add solid whites also as well as a pop of color here and there for accents.
4. Match the toile with a simple geometric pattern in the same color. Use geometric patterns such as checks and stripes with toile as well as solids.
5. Mix red toile with light-colored neutrals like gray, cream and beige to reduce the intensity of the red. To enhance the red, match it with other patterns of red checkered fabric or red stripes.
6. If a room in your home already has two or more colors, match a toile print with only one of the colors.
Tags: main color, match toile, match with, black white, color toile, color wheel