combining colours: shade selection inspiration

This is my third (and final) post about selecting shades for the Tonnach cardigan. You can find part one (in which I talk you through the step-by-step process of my own shade selection) and part two (in which my KDD pals discuss their colour choices) by following the links.

Many knitters struggle putting shades together. In my experience, this is not because these knitters “aren’t good” with colour, or somehow don’t know which shades they like. On the contrary, I think that most knitters have a fantastic individual sense of colour, and are naturally drawn to certain shades (or groups of shades), but an issue arises when they have to combine several together in a palette. It’s the combining that creates the problem, and it is at this point that a knitter might get a bit hung up on unhelpful “rules” about the way that colour works, or, when there are a lot of shades on offer, feel overwhelmed by choice. The time-consuming way to resolve such palette-related problems is to knit a lot of experimental multi-colour swatches (like I do!) but if you don’t have time for this, and if you just want to choose some shades and get on with your knitting then I have a simple suggestion for you: use a palette that already exists, and which you know works and looks good, from a completely different garment.

Here, for example, is KC looking fabulous on modelling duty, with a Goff Place Mystery shawl in the Claire colourway.

The shades involved here are Lochan, Birkin, Foxglove, Ardlui and Stockiemuir: a dark navy, a cool grey, a hot pink, a grey-blue and a yellow green.

These five shades combine really well into a cohesive palette which would work excellently for Tonnach: there are light and dark shades; complementary colours; tonal contrasts, bold pops and eye-catching variety. But you don’t need to take my word for it . . .

If you want to get a sense of what your palette is going to look like without swatching first, you can begin by arranging your skeins of yarn in the order they will appear in your garment (in the example above, I’ve used Lochan as the A shade and Stockiemuir as the shade B pop). Setting two balls of Lochan at the beginning and end of the sequence allows you to “frame” your palette (in the same way that a multi-colour garment would be framed by its ribbed cuffs, hem and neckline), which will help you assess how the “frame” works with each of the other shades. Figuring out a palette in this way – by arranging and rearranging skeins – only takes a moment. Once you’ve done that, there’s another quick trick you can try:

Make a yarn wrap

Take a piece of card and wrap your shades around it, in the order that you’d like them to appear in your finished garment. Playing around with the shade order (to assess how different colours work alongside or at a distance from one another) is a fairly quick process in a yarn wrap, and can definitely help you make decisions about what which shades might best work as “frames”, and which would be well-placed as contrasts or colour pops. In the example above, I’ve taken the palette from Còinneach, a yoked cardigan featuring five shades – Birkin, Gloamin, Stockiemuir, Garth and Bruce – and arranged them in two different ways.

Maybe you’d prefer your “framing” colour to be Birkin (which dominates the palette of the original Còinneach) or perhaps you would prefer the darker shade of Gloamin’ for your ribbed frame?

By arranging and rearranging your skeins, or wrapping and re-wrapping yarn, you can try out several alternatives for your palette, and see which order or sequence pleases you the most.

But what if the multi-coloured garment from which you are taking inspiration has more shades than you need? In that case, you might consider selecting a few shades to capture the feeling of the combination, rather than replicating the palette in its entirety.

Here’s Claire wearing Solas Biorach – a stranded colourwork cardigan whose chart involves 9 different shades. If you liked this garment’s distinctive combination of dark and bright colours, but felt that 9 was too many, you could experiment with your skeins and yarn wraps to reduce this number, and come up with a 5-shade combination, such as this:

I chose Bruce as the “A” frame (just like the original cardigan) and Birkin as shade B, with Ardnamurchan, Foxglove and Asphodel to add 3 colourful contrasts.

Here’s another example of a 5 shade palette narrowed down from a larger number of shades:

This soft combination, ideal for a Tonnach, takes, as its starting point, a 9 shade Hap-Nap that Beverley knitted for Colour Compass, using Lochan as its frame.

I’m a fan of blues as “framing” colours (because who doesn’t wear jeans?) so here’s another pared-down palette, this time featuring Ardluiu.

I was able to create a super-pleasing combination of muted and bold colours using Sarah Mackay’s brilliant Every Flavour hat (from our Milarrochy Heids book) as inspiration. Focusing on the feeling of Sarah’s palette (rather than reproducing every colour), I narrowed down the 12 shades used in the original to just 5. I would be very happy to knit a garment with this combination!

You can also use an existing palette as a starting point to take your shade choices in a new or slightly different direction. Here, for example, is my original Tonnach, of which I’m very fond.

If you liked this combination, but wanted your garment to feel a little fresher – and a little less autumnal – you could choose to lighten up a shade or two.

This pleasing pastel palette follows the same colour order and colour type as my original sample, but a much more summery ice-cream feel has been created by simply choosing a much paler shade of pink. I like this new combination so much I’m tempted to feature it on another design!

Here are three more examples, in which I’ve used skein arrangements and yarn wraps to create Tonnach palettes from the colour combinations of some of my favourite yokes:

Maylin’s gorgeous Painted Cave

Collar de Pilar

And finally, a four-shade palette, inspired by Balmaha:

so, to summarise, if you find choosing and combining colours overwhelming:

1. Carefully examine the shade combination of a multi-coloured garment that you already really like. How might this combination be adapted or modified, extended or reduced, in order to create an appealing palette for your Tonnach?

2. Arrange your skeins until you find their order pleasing, using two skeins of your “frame” colour at the beginning and end of the sequence (to help you to visualise the effect of the garment ribs).

3. With a small piece of cardboard, make a yarn wrap , wrapping the shades in the order and sequence they are used in the Tonnach chart.

4. Rearrange your skeins and re-wrap your yarn as necessary until you are completely happy with your colour combination.

5. Knit a swatch.

Step 5 is, of course essential and though yarn wrapping will certainly speed up your shade selection process (if you are someone with a tendency to swither), please remember that it is no substitute for swatching, not least because gauge is important in this pattern and you definitely need to check your gauge.

One thing you have no doubt noticed about all these Tonnach palettes is that none of them involve Hirst, instead featuring shades of Milarrochy Tweed that we actually (happily) have in stock! So if you’d like to put your own palette together inspired by anything you’ve seen in this post, please feel free to do so (also remembering that any yarn that knits to gauge is absolutely fine for this KAL) .

I hope you’ve enjoyed my posts about selecting and combining colours! And if you are still trying to figure out your preferred shades for your Tonnach why not hop over to the KDD Ravelry group for more inspiration and advice? If you upload a photograph of your different options to the KAL thread, we’ll happily help you narrow down your preferences in order to make a final choice.

Happy shade selecting (and swatching)!