Inspiration for an antique black background

What color is antique black?

My antique black is many colors. Sometimes antique black is splotchy.

Sometimes it is dappled colored.

It can be streaky.

Antique black need never be dull. It can be full of subdued color and textures.

I like to look to my vintage textiles for ideas. I love all of the deep hues in this tattered quilt. You can use all of these colors in an antique black background.

Be painterly with your backgrounds, thinking of them as shadows or out of focus elements. Antique black is a fun background color to hook, because it is easy to find dark colors of wool. Some people like to blend their dark colors in a dye pot first and then hook with them, but instead you can let your eye blend them by hooking them next to each other.

Backgrounds are never boring then you hook with many color choices. If you are worried about your background being too busy, make more conservative choices at first such as brown, grey, navy, deep olive, maroon, eggplant. Then throw into the mix more daring colors such as steel blue-gray, deep dusty lavender, dark mustard, deep green, reddish-brown, or a dark texture with more colors in it.

Antique black is my favorite background to hook because I find it to be very relaxing, forgiving, and dynamic.

Enjoy ~ Karen