My view  on this gorgeous day is the blue of the sky and the water of the Chesapeake Bay. A little bit closer by, the colors of sand, shells and an occasional beach spider bringing fresh sand out of the hole it is creating. This blue/beige color combination is a personal favorite. It is classic and classy, looks always good on people and walls....and it is open to a lot of accents that can take it into surprising directions. My husband and I are about to remodel our master bedroom, after sleeping there for 22 years without doing much to the room. Carpet is finally going out and getting replaced by hardwood and the blue/beige color scheme of the house is going to be continued in here as well. We feel comfortable in those colors as a base and it gives me room to bring in accent colors in shades of yellow greens and straw yellow, the color that is connected to the South of France and the city of Hoi An, Vietnam.

It is quiet here on this beach. The water is calm and there are only a handful people enjoying the scenery.  What a luxury to be able to do this! One of the benefits of working the way we are now, is that we can visit places of nature on weekdays in stead of Sundays. It's every time a different experience and we always express to each other how lucky we are.

In this relaxing place, I turn myself around and suddenly , I see a big vessel on the water. It’s loaded with containers.  All those colored containers in a nicely stacked pattern, almost like a gigantic design wall. I admire the beauty of this vessel and the color action it brings. Some people may feel  this vessel is distracting the endless view of the Bay,  I  see it as a friendly "wave" of another kind. It makes me happy to see all those colors.

I suddenly realized that containers have a bad press lately. The word container is used in a negative way to describe the supply chain issues. They are not doing anything, making goods expensive, and are sitting in a harbor...yet these containers today are beautiful and actually moving pretty fast. Clearly, I have a soft spot for those colorful rectangles on the move. Their contrast makes the water and  sand even more blue and tan.  I remember how my friend Ineke  and I admired the freight train out West while driving on our way to QuiltCon in Pasadena CA. We both loved the worn colors of the vintage and distressed containers that gave  so much warmth to the bare tan of the mountains. It was like a big line of Grunge on wheels! 

And the many containers in the harbor of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, much shinier in my memory than the train containers out West. Would such a train container ever get to a harbor in Europe? Or is it the different color of the natural day light that reflects on the containers differently? 

My mind is searching my memory for other places with containers…Crazy how you sometimes realize that you always liked something without having been aware of it. 

The vessel is making progress and will soon be out of sight.  Do all those colors have a meaning?   Is it just a matter of having a certain color paint available? Oh my, you can google this just like I did. They are not random at all! The colors refer to the owner or leasing company. They can say something about the content and there is even a color chart, the RAL chart, that looks very much like any chart of a fabric collection. The numbers remind me of all the labels we put on the largest collections of basics that helped everyone identify the colors. That was so new in those days and so much appreciated by everyone.  But is was at the same time very much me and the way I think about colors: in ranges, flows. I'm not the only one doing this as I have seen many (especially Japanese) customers in Houston picking one day a range of greens and the next day they would come back focussing on, let say, blues. I had the impression some of them came to the show knowing their stash very well and trying to fill in the gaps. This systematic approach gives a full range of values and hues and the suitcase will bring many usable  fabrics back home. It's a much better way than walking around and buying whatever catches your eyes and heart, because you do need "ugly" fabrics that totally don't jump at you. I had to learn this myself as well, because nobody, certainly not a beginner quilter, is inclided to pay for fabrics that are not appealing at hello. To think about the function of a fabric is a total different approach in the acquisition of fabric.  This is also why new shops are very often lacking depth: most owners buy whatever they like and it is very hard for them to understand someone else's taste/need.

If I would see this RAL chart in fabrics indeed, I would immediately see that it's strength is in the darker colors. The "collection" lacks  lights and is slightly out of balance. The saturation of the colors is very consistent. It has a great range in neutrals, that take about 1/3 of the collection. In all, I think it is a beautiful collection!

These are not fabrics, these are container colors, that are being exposed to the elements and a lot of wear and tear. It all makes sense...

 Full circle, now I know why these containers appeal so much to me...