Primary color blending in your crafts

In my last post, I wrote about mixing pastels and promised to give examples of yarn and color mixing in my work. Despite my short memory, I have not yet forgotten that promise (yippee!) and now I'm going to show something with primary colors.


You probably already know this, but for those who don't: red, blue and yellow are primary colors on the color wheel. These colors can be mixed to create secondary colors. Red and blue makes purple. Blue and yellow makes green. Red and yellow makes orange.

An easy way to remember these is to envision the classic 8-pack of Crayola crayons. If you omit the black and brown, these are the six colors you have left. The crayons in this pack are bright and saturated and that is why they will often go together in your artwork, home decorating and wardrobe planning.

If you were wearing a blue and yellow summer outfit, for example, you would probably want both the blue and yellow to be bright or both to be pastel or both to be muted. That doesn't mean you are locked into this rule, but if you aren't sure, the bright-with-bright, pastel-with-pastel and muted-with-muted is a good rule of thumb to follow.

In home decorating, imagine a living room decorated in medium light blue and medium light yellow in a sort of French country to Provencal scheme. Or think of a children's room, decorated in bright blue and yellow. For the exterior of a house, you might choose a muted smoky blue and very muted yellow trim.

Often small accents can tolerate a smattering of colors, whereas the backdrop will only use one or two.  A pillow in red, blue and yellow--I had a photo here, but lost it, long story--works well as an accent. But you would probably not decorate a room using all of these colors. Perhaps the pillow would serve as an accent on a royal blue sofa. Maybe there is a red side chair across the room. An Oriental carpet might tie the colors together in a dark navy with flecks of red, blue and green. Some houseplants would echo the green in the carpet and in the pillow.

Similarly, in your wardrobe, you instinctively know that when you put on a navy wool suit, you can get away with a vivid red, blue, yellow paisley scarf and perhaps some garnet jewelry.

Men might choose a navy suit, yellow dress shirt with a navy rep tie. Perhaps you are tempted to point out that navy is a muted color and the yellow shirt a man would most likely wear would be a pastel yellow and that this contradicts what I said earlier. That is because I have no freaking idea what I am talking about.

But I can usually wing it. Except for the time when I was pregnant and shopping for dress fabric and a contrasting floral collar fabric with my mother. The dress fabric was peach. And I thought the collar fabric was peach, blue and white until I got it home and saw it was rose, blue and white. "Why did you let me buy that?" I wailed to my mother, who has a master's degree in art. She said he hadn't wanted to argue with me. And maybe that is also a good rule of thumb. If you think you know what you are doing, trust your instincts and don't let people talk you out of them. But don't help me shop for maternity fabric, okay?!

dj runnels
Life's an Expedition on Etsy

An example of yarn blending

I still receive puzzled questions from knitters about yarn blending, so I thought I would start posting more of my project photos. Yarns do not literally have to match when you blend them. For example, the two blue yarns in this photo are not identical blues. And the pinks are not identical either. But when you hold two strands of yarn together as you knit or crochet, that sort of forces them to go together...

Well, within reason. Forest green and bright orange are always going to look like a sports team. But if you keep pastels with pastels, earth tones with earth tones, brights with brights, that will help you avoid some glaring color combinations.

All yarns shown in these photos are available in our online Life's an Expedition yarn store on Etsy.

dj runnels

Unusual yarn combo

A neck warmer I am making. Can't sell it because I made a mistake in one row. Guess I'll have to keep it. Too bad. :o)

dj runnels
Life's an Expedition has lots of neck warmers on Etsy.

Yarn Mixing 101

Originally posted on eBay:

Everyone asks me how I blend my yarns. I normally reply that I use a pitchfork, bacon grease and 3D glasses. But after a few slaps to the head, I behave and give more intelligent advice. This guide will be about switching yarns while knitting. I realize some of you will read this and say, "Duh!" but I would not be writing this if I had not been asked for advice. Others are having trouble with the concept so if you know all of this already, try to sit still and be quiet. Or run out and get Starbucks for all of us.

The easiest way to explain what I do is to have you try a swatch. This should only take 20 minutes. Even less if you've been drinking Starbucks. Choose three worsted weight yarns that look completely different in terms of color. Yeah. We're going to make an ugly swatch so you can see what it is you did and how you did it. Next select a needle size that is about a size larger than the yarn calls for. Designate your colors A, B and C.

Cast on 12 stitches with A.

Row 1: knit across. In fact, knit all the odd rows.

Row 2: purl across. You will purl across all the even rows.

Row 3: knit across.

Row 4: Leave A hanging there. Make a slip knot with a three-inch "tail" with B. Purl across working the tail into your knitting. It will be bulkier than the other rows. I'll address that in a minute.

Row 5: knit across with B.

Row 6: purl across holding A and B together.

Row 7: knit across with B only.

Row 8: leave B hanging. Make a slip knot with a three-inch "tail" with C. Purl across working the tail into your work. It will be bulkier here, too. And now you will have strands hanging all over creation.

Row 9: knit across with A.

Row 10: purl across with B.

Row 11: knit across with C.

Keep going until you feel you are getting the hang of it. At any time, if A, B and C are creating a humongous tangle, cut one off at the seam and tie a knot that won't show when you sew the seams together which is sort of the beginner method. OR create a slit knot and work the tail into your knitting. The more distinct your colors are and the more often you switch at the end of a row, the more striped your results will be. The more you alternate between A, B, C and D and E and however many yarns you have, plus the more SIMILAR your colors are and the more you work the tails into your work, the more blended the effects will be.

But before you start making a coat the size of a Buick, please do this: measure your gauge. I asked you to use slightly larger needles to allow for those bulky double-yarn rows. How did they turn out? If you're using worsted weight yarn and you're getting 4 stitches to the inch on every row, that's great. If some rows are wider than others, you will likely need to swap needle sizes now and then as you work...unless you like the results you are getting. Also look at the color changes that started on knit rows versus the color changes that started on purl rows. If you always swap colors on a purl row, you'll have a nicer look on the "right" side of the piece. But if you don't mind the dotted lines or if you're doing straight knit on both sides, then don't worry about what everyone says you "should" do. Rely on what you like. It's your work. You go, girl.

This is not the only way to blend yarns. It is one way and it is intended to simplify the mystery for beginners who are nervous about this sort of thing. If you feel encouraged by this swatch test, try it again with yarns similar in color and texture and you will like your results much better. If you're familiar with the yarn in my store, THIS, my darlings, is what it is all about. This is why I create yarns in color families and this is how I knit every day of my life. I haven't made a solid-color anything in over a decade. This is what the rest of us have been doing with yarn-mixing, or at least one way of doing it. Good luck. Experiment. There is much more to knitting than following concise directions and I hope you enjoy this great adventure that awaits you. Stephanie, I wrote this for you and in honor of your grandmother.

djrunnels
Life's an Expedition on Etsy is loaded to the gills with more examples of how to mix yarns.