You will hear people interchange shading and fading, however fading to me is different than shading. Fading typically means we are transitioning from one color into contrasting color. The best example I have of one in a decorative wrap is this one:
This is one of the wraps that was done for a challenge I did in Southern. This was not packed tight like I normally would nor did I keep it. However, see how I started with black and it faded all the way to white? That particular fade is an 8:1 ratio. Extremely slow transition but I needed it in order to take up the space and not end with a big chunk of white at the end. That spacing was 18 mm apart so I had to fill that space with 72 threads which is where I figured out that an 8:1 ratio would work perfectly.
So basically the ratios work for both shading and also fading. The only difference is the colors used. They also work when trying to blend multiple colors throughout a wrap. For instance this wrap:
This is one of my least favorite wraps but it was a challenge wrap. A few years ago I was challenged to let my toddler pick out the colors to use and he picked all these. In order to make them work somewhat I used the ratios and put the colors in what I call fire and ice categories. Red, orange, and yellow were placed side by side and the blues and purples were placed side by side and I wrapped in the order that looked the best. Someone named this one the Tie Dye Wrap, it definitely fits the bill.
Busting out another OLD example of a fade. This was back when I was first getting into wrapping heavily and the customer wanted fall like colors so I did a chevron with a fade.
I think you guys probably understand what a fade is at this point, most of you probably know the term from this style of wrap (pay attention to the tie off section and not the actual wrap):
Both tie offs were what is typically seen as a fade wrap, but I did some modifying of the sequence to replicate the grips.
