Choosing a colour palette

Colour is important in design, in fact it's important in pretty much everything, but it's of special importance when you're putting together a collection.  Every piece must work with every other piece.  The colour story has to be beautiful, cohesive without being matchy-matchy.

And it's not a straightforward thing to do when your collection is made from yarn... yarn from lots of different yarn companies, from different shops, from online...

My first thought was that I'd have to carry around a huge, growing bag filled with all the different items to make sure that any new addition worked with everything else. Whilst I was pondering the practicalities of yarn shopping with a holdall, a backpack and a small suitcase on wheels, I received an email from a paint company and had a revelation.

(Please note that I am not addicted to home décor as well as yarn. This particular paint company has a range of stunning, heritage inspired paint colours and I like to see what they’re doing and what new colours they’re bringing out. Just so you know.)

Anyway, back to the revelation. I realised that what I needed was a portable colour palette. A little card with all the relevant colours on it. Yep, that’s right. I ordered their free colour card. And when it arrived I cut it up into little rectangles of colour and had a thoroughly enjoyable hour arranging, discarding and selecting colours until I had a collection I was happy with. Then I went all Blue Peter and stuck the chosen rectangles on a card which will live in my handbag and accompany me on every trip to everywhere. Because you never know when you might stumble across some yarn or even a yarn shop.

Can you tell how ridiculously happy the colour exercise has made me? In case you’re wondering what collection I’m talking about, I’m working on a book filled with fabulous patterns and now it has a proper, grown up, cohesive colour palette. Now I just need to visit All The Yarn Shops.