Ways to play with colorwork for your knitting projects

Knitting can be such a fun, relaxing and creative way to express our energy.

We start with the basics, teach our muscles to hold the needles and yarn and like any new craft or exercise, we get better with practice.

And then we reach a point where our little creative elf starts to tell us: ‘what if…’

So we venture into textures, cables, lace and all kinds of more complicated patterns. Learning along the way how to use life-lines, how to keep counting your rows with counters, how to read graphs, and many other interesting knitting wonders.

Some of us might even be adventurous enough to find a way to translate Russian patterns (yes, that’s me and you can find one HERE).

One of the best and more fun ways to play with Knitting Design is with color. Going beyond the grays and browns. Applying our personality into a new knitting canvas.

We have gathered a few ideas about how to play with color in your next Knitting and Crochet projects and here’s what we’ve come up with:

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BOLD COLOR PALETTES 

It’s fair. Initially, you might want to use colors that ‘go well’ with many of your garments: the blacks, browns, neutrals. Those are really great for pieces you use on a regular basis. But perhaps you are now ready to venture into color. 

With the amazing variety of color spectrums out there, there’s bound to be all kinds of authentic palettes you can create. 

Our friend and invited contributing author Vilasinee Bunnag, the inventor of the Loome Tools and author of Loome Party gives us some great ideas to think about color:

Mixing and accentuating colors is one of the pleasures of knitting, crocheting, pom pom making…or for that matter, any type of craft. Using more than one color truly transforms a project and bring out the best qualities of your piece. Since I work with colors every day, I have a simple rule of thumb that gets me out of my own color block (pun intended) every time. I pull from one of three formulas: Monochromatic, BPN and Nature. If I want to do something more unique or push my own limitations, I refer to the color theory section of the Loome Party book (pg.17-19).

I like to stay within a range of using two to four colors. I find this works really well and doesn’t give me analysis-paralysis.

• The Monochromatic Formula: This is the simplest and fool proof approach. Here, you’re choosing two or more colors in the same family but with contrasting shades or tones. The key is to make sure that the yarn colors are distinguishable from one to the other. An example, would be teal, aqua and light green, navy, sky blue and baby blue, red, hot and pastel pink. 
• The BPN (Brights, Pastel and Neutral) Formula: By far, this is my favorite formula because it works every time and with a wide range of colors.
  • Bright = Any color that pops and has an intensity. This includes colors like hot pink, deep purple, fluorescent yellow, strong red, canary yellow, etc.
  • Pastel = Any colors that invoke the 80’s Miami. Colors like pale pink, light purple, light blue, etc.
  • Neutral = Any colors that conjure up a field of sheep and goats. This includes beige, light gray, undyed virgin wool. I don’t include bright white as a neutral because the color tend to have an intensity about it because it’s so light.
• Nature: Nature is perfect in many ways and among them is her selection of colors. From dragon fruits to lemons to agave plants to aspen trees to bougainvilleas, color schemes from nature are always translatable into a knitwear project. 

Some of our favorite colorwork combinations are:

The Joanne’s Web Color Palette

The nature tones

Or even interesting combinations like the ones Caron created with the Pantone line.

COLOR BLOCKING

Color blocking is one of the most popular ways to play with color in knitting.

We can start with simple geometric shape patterns that will teach us how to change yarn colors. We have a great reference video for this:

Follow along with a simple scarf color block pattern like this:

TWO COLOR SWIRL BEANIE

OR

COLOR BLOCK KNIT SCARF: https://www.yarnspirations.com/row-en/caron-x-pantone-shifting-blocks-knit-scarf/CAK0125-012388M.html#q=color+block+knit&start=4 (free pattern too!)

FAIR ISLE COLORWORK

This is the more intricate side of multi-color knitting and it involves loads of attention and multiple color yarns.

The designs can get very intricate and become a living piece of art. You can find many Fair Isle patterns on Ravelry.

VARIEGATED OR MULTICOLORED YARN

Our other contributing author Hannah Thiessen with Knitcrate (our favorite yarn subscription service) has shared some thoughts about color and yarn choices.

At KnitCrate we often see our customers getting outside of their color comfort zones (although those who want to stay in certain color ranges now have the option to select a monthly color vibe!) A subscription is a great way to experiment with color. If you’re the type of knitter or crocheter who feels nervous about working with variegated yarns, color blocking, stripes, and stranded knitting are a great way to combine these busy yarns with a less-busy ‘grounding’ color in the form of a solid or semi-solid. The variegated yarn takes up less space this way and creates new, unique effects.

DOUBLE-SIDED KNITTING

When we discover the art of double-sided knitting we open up a world of possibilities!

Having a knitted garment with two different sides to use is not only interesting but also quite fun to work with!

This is a theme we’re familiar with, as one of our top video tutorials is exactly about this subject:

The Double-Sided Knitting Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JroP84tUmJA&t=1s

Here’s an example of project we made with this technique. You can try it out today 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4t3vhcoFYE

And we also teach you how to finish your piece with this other tutorial:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctOTwjWPekY&t=1s

DIY COLOR 

We can create our own custom color palettes with this handy website app that allows us to create any spectrum of color arrangements. From manually selecting the color or by uploading a photo of the colors you like. 

COOLORS Color Scheme Generator: https://coolors.co/

Perhaps there might be some of us who prefer to dye their own yarn. For that, we have found an amazing channel called ChemKnits Tutorials https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMSe6hlZi_CDPQ90Ks5-lbA

While yarn dying is still an unknown art for a lot of us, it can be quite a fun experience and also can give us the control to choose the colors we want for our knitted project!

We appreciate your visit. Remember to visit our YouTube channel to learn a lot more about knitting!

You can also find some patterns inside our own STORE.