How to choose perfect yarn color for crochet / knitting?

6 Tips to choose perfect yarn color 🧶🎨:

Have you ever wondered how to choose the perfect yarn color for your crochet or knitting project?

How do we select which colors will look good together and which colors won’t?

We always have some doubt when it comes to color selection. Picking perfect colors and perfect types of yarn should be the first step of your work. Color selection is very important for good appearance. Colors can change your mood & it can communicate without any language. Not only for crochet or knitting this blog will help every person. You can implement these techniques for your home, art, shopping etc and this can be replicated in any products. When we work in color combinations, the outcome should be pleasant to our eyes and to our photographs. It should not be striking our eyes and create bad impression of that product.

Color is a power which directly influences the soul. ~Wassily Kandinsky

Today we are going to see 6 tips to choose perfect yarn color:

Recommended Crochet Supplies:

1) Color Wheel 🎡

We have studied about color wheels in our schools. But no one will think about that while picking perfect colors. And some people don’t know how to use a color wheel. Let me help you. First, we can talk about color schemes and its properties:

How color forms? 🧪

There are 3 primary colors – Red, Yellow, Blue. While mixing two primary colors we will get secondary colors like – green, orange etc. While mixing two colors we will get tertiary colors like – sky blue, burgundy etc.

Color Schemes:

1. Monochromatic:

Monochromatic colors scheme will have one base color and different shades of the same color. This color combination cannot go wrong. It will match 100% for everyone. This will look very subtle and decent.

2. Complementary:

Complementary colors are opposite to each other on color wheel. This color scheme will add contrast to your project. And your project will be brighter.

You can use different shades of the same color to make it more beautiful.

3. Analogous:

Analogous are colors which are next to each other. This will give you many unique & inspiring colors. This analogous color scheme will result in abrupt color change if you use equal amount of colors in your project. To avoid that pick one main color and use other colors for decorations or embellishments.

4. Split Complementary:

Split complementary uses either side of the complementary colors. This will result in imperfect triangular shape. Play with different shade of colors to get more interesting results. Like complementary color scheme, this will also give contrast to your project.

Don’t go for bright colors if you use this scheme.

5. Triadic:

Triadic color schemes have evenly spaced colors. It will result in perfect triangular shape. This scheme will be striking to your eyes. This color scheme will look too bold and vibrant if you choose a darker shade of colors and it will be in high contrast. Be careful while choosing this color scheme. Better to use lighter shades of colors together.

6. Tetradic:

This color scheme uses two complementary color pairs. It will result in rectangular shape. To make it more unique pick one dominant color and use other 3 colors for decorations.

I think now you got an idea about color wheels. Using this technique, you can become a pro in color selection.

How to balance colors? 👩‍🔬

Now we are going to talk about colors that I didn’t show in the color wheel. Yes! It’s black and white.

Usually, when we paint, we will mix white to some color to make it lighter, or we will mix black to make it darker. For example: Pick red color and mix some white to it, it will turn into pink or if we add black, it will turn into maroon red. That’s the concept now. If you want to make your project soft and subtle, you can use white color + any other color of your preference. Or If you want to make your project pop up and contrast, add black color to your project. It’s as simple as that. Black will make it contrast and white will make it subtle.

Other than that, we have two more balancing colors, that is grey and beige (or any nude color).

Beige goes well with almost all colors. Even if it is a dark shade or light shade, beige will match to that color. So, using beige is like lying in the safe zone. If you are not sure about which color to use to balance our project, you can blindly use beige or nude color.

And grey also helps to balance your project colors. There are many shades in grey. Again, you have to keep that one concept in mind. Lighter shade will make your project subtle. That is, light grey makes your project subtle and dark grey will make it contrast.

And another option those who love minimalism, can pick these four minimalistic colors (black, white, nude, grey). This color combo will always give great results. 100%

2) Color from nature: 🏞

Nature always surprises us. It always has beautiful color combos. When you see anything beautiful in nature, like sunrise, plants or flowers, you may think that the colors are so pretty and it is beautifully blended together. We will always love nature’s color palette. Why not use that for our project?

So next time, if you see anything beautiful in nature, note the colors, or take a snap of that scene. Later you can use that photo when you want to pick colors for your project.

3) Pinterest 📌

Another easy way to get a color palette is Pinterest. There are plenty of color palette boards available in Pinterest. Just you can search color palettes in the search bar. It will show you thousands of color palettes.

Or else you can refer to any picture in Pinterest to pick a suitable color palette. As I said above, when you see a beautiful image in Pinterest you can save it and later you can refer to it.

Or else, if you are following any crocheters / knitters or anyone related to your field, you can refer to their finished projects. See how they made color combinations for their product. You can use like that or you can make some alterations in that color combos.

4) Colors from photograph 🤳

You can also use your own or any downloaded photographs to pull colors and turn into an awesome color palette.

For example:

• In Instagram story, Choose any photograph of your choice

• Select brush tool in top right corner

• You can find an eyedropper tool in the bottom left corner, by using that to pull some colors from your photograph, and make some paint blobs in your photos.

• Pull as many colors as you want, until you are satisfied with your final color palette.

• Then screenshot it or download it, later you can use that for your project.

5) Color palette websites 🕸

Other than Pinterest, there are lots of color palette websites available. Just type color palette website in google. You will find lots of websites which have a number of color palettes. Some are free to download and some websites are paid. You can choose anything you like.

6) Artistic skill 👩‍🎨

If you love to be artistic, you are good to go. Take any of your art materials, sketches, watercolors, whatever you have with you. Play with some colors. Create your own color palette. After a few trial and errors, you will get an awesome color palette. You can use that too.

I hope now you got some idea about choosing perfect color combinations for your projects. If this blog helps you, leave me a comment below.