colorway

[Erin McKean]

Quilters use "colorway" when talking about fabric (often one fabric
with a particular pattern) that is available in different colors, or
groups of colors suitable for use together in one quilt. Here's a
cite from Google:

We have three colorways available. For the fist one, we've mixed a
bunch of cozy plaid flannels with a great fish print and some woodsy
print flannels in tans, browns, greens, reds, blues, and a bit of
black. The second colorway is done in yellow, green, pink, and blue
pastels with plaids, solids, and juvenile prints. Our third selection
is a more muted grouping from the Thimbleberries lines with
coordinating prints and plaids.


I've often seen the term in Threads magazine, too.

--Erin
editor at verbatimmag.com

>On Thu, 2 May 2002, Ed Keer wrote:
>
>#On colorway, my wife has this to say:
>#
>#>That's interesting, but the term is used all the time >in the design
>#>industry >today.  It's not obscure at all.  Every person I work >with
>#and know in >the >home textiles,(woven and prints,) as well as in the
>#>ready to wear >industry >uses the term colorway to refer to any given
>#number of >colors and / or >fabrics swatches grouped together to
>#complete or tell >a , get this >one...color story!
>
>Obviously it's a well established term of art. But it's not in the AHD
>or OED 2, and it's out there in the showroom for non-specialists to read
>and hopefully understand, so there is, or may be, a lexicographic gap,
>nicht wahr?
>
>(Sorry about the '>'s. Ed's mailer evidently wrapped his wife's lines
>into iambs ;-)\ -- long line, short line, long line, short line -- and
>quoted them with a greater-than at the start of each one.)
>
>-- Mark M.