Color selection tips and tricks

I dont think that I am very good at choosing colors for my blankets but I do spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect ones together be it stripes, hexagons to squares blankets. I usually badger my best friend or my husband into telling me which ones look good.

I also use sites like design-seeds (if you haven’t been to designs-seeds yet, I highly recommend it. I could spend hours looking at the colors) to get an idea of related colors that look good together. Of course, we don’t get yarn in all possible colors all the time so I compare these colors to yarn color cards. Most acrylic yarns have a good selection of colors and there are a number of ways you can visualize them before actually starting to crochet/knit.

1. Color pencils – the good old color pencils to draw what you have in mind for this product and modify the hues to see what looks better.2.  Paint/photoshop – I use photoshop/paint most of the time to put the images of the yarn together and see which ones compliment each other.

3. Yarn pegs-  Attic24 has devised it awesome technique for color organization using Yarn pegs. Turns out I am super lazy and haven’t gotten around to making these yet.

Although these let you see which colors go together you don’t really know what your blanket is going to look like if you were to randomize the colors. These are some of the websites I go to for visualization:

1. Random stripe generator: for this, you just have to choose your colors and width of the stripe and you are set.

2. Random Granny square generator : for this, you have to select the individual colors and the number of colors in each granny square.

There are some places you can find complimentary colors and contrasting colors that go together but that hasn’t always worked out for me.

Finally here are some of the color combinations that are commonly used together especially in beddings and nursery (I dont think it is limited to babies, I LOVE BRIGHT COLORS too)

I usually go for a dominant color and use at least two shades to highlight it followed by a slight contrast. My go to colors are:

Green for shades of pink

Yellow for shades of blue.

There can be hundreds of these combinations. Try some out for yourself and see what you are comfortable with.

The following chart gives you a four color; five color, and ; six color combinations for a blanket.

Here are some of the examples of these combinations I have used before:

1. Purple, off-white and orange
2. Blues/Aquas, off-white and yellow
3. Pinks, white and green (I have used this combination a bunch of times)
4. Pinks, white and blue

Hope you enjoy creating more colorful things. Have a great weekend.

 

Knitted Chevron Miniblanket

This is one of the miniblankets I made in this new color combination. This reminds me of lemonade and summer.

If you follow me at all, you know I have used this pattern a number of times. I really love this easy pattern and have made it before in various colors. So here you go.

Pattern: Chevron baby blanket

Materials:

Caron Simply soft white, lemonade, limelight, and Kelly Green.

US Size 7 circular knitting needle.

Finished dimensions: 16X19”

This blanket is now available on etsy.

Have a great weekend everyone.

 

Diagonal stripe knitted MiniBlanket

I have been making Miniblankets this holiday season. What are Miniblankets you ask? These are small 16X20” blankets which are perfect for new born babies to toddlers (as security blankets) and for the knitter/crocheter in me, these are perfectly sized for making a bunch of different colors as testers. These are the cutest things and I could keep making these forever.You can expect a few more blog posts of ‘mini-blanket-nature’ coming up soon.

For this blanket I used the diagonal stripe blanket pattern that I have used before here and here in pink and modified it to make it smaller.

Materials:

Caron simply soft yarn in white, royal blue, soft blue and limelight.

US size 7 circular needles.

Finished dimensions: 16X19”

This blanket is now available on etsy. Hope you have a great weekend.

Lace knitted scarf

This is my first lace knitting project ever. I loved knitting an intricate pattern. It is amazing to see the difference blocking makes on lacy patterns.

This pattern is available on ravelry.  I modified the pattern a little bit and knitted (even if it said purl) through on the right side and purled through the wrong side. It made my life easier so I could knit while watching television. 😉

Materials:

I used hand-dyed yarn I got from the local fiber festival.

A good yarn, superwash merino fingering weight yarn

US size 2 circular needles

Finished dimensions: after blocking 14”X 45”.

Have a great Halloween weekend!

Knitted Chevron Blanket No. 7

I have been working on getting some new Blanket colors combinations this past month.

I absolutely adore this pattern. It is a quick knit, free pattern. most color combinations go with this. I love the gradients and contrast for this one.

Materials:

Carons simply soft yarn

White, orchid, grape, Purple, and Robin’s Egg.

Finished dimensions: 24×30″

Edging: I crocheted one round of double crochet and one round of scalloped edging for this.

This blanket is now available on etsy. Have a great week everyone!