Organizing Your Yarn Into Colors and Using a Color Wheel

by Lisa
(uniquehomemadegifts.com)

Organizing your yarn into like colors and using a color wheel to help pick out project colors makes designing your projects a breeze. I, personally, organize my yarn into multiple categories/totes. I have pinks, reds, oranges and yellows. Then greens and blues. Purples and grays are together. Then my blacks, browns and whites. (If I had the space, I would separate each color into its own tote.)

I separate out any variegated or striping yarn into a tote of its own. Any fuzzy, funky, or fun fur type yarn gets its own area, too. I also have a scrap yarn tote. It’s full of all the partial skeins and yarn pieces that are too big to throw away. (That way, I only have one tote to dig through when my project is small.) Because I love to OVER organize, I have all my smaller baby yarns and specialty yarns like crochet cottons and rayon cords all separated out into their own totes. Each tote is either clear so I can see what’s inside, or it’s clearly marked so finding what I need is just a matter of digging out the right tote.

Sometimes choosing a color for your project is simple. You love the pattern, right down to the color the designer chose to make it out of. If that’s the case, your job is simple. A simple trip to your yarn storage for that color, or to the yarn store to buy it. But other times, you love the pattern, but aren’t so excited about the designer’s color choice. So, what to do? How do you decide which colors will work together? In the past I’ve gone to my yarn storage and held multiple yarns, from multiple totes, together to see what I thought. By the time I was done choosing my yarn, boy did I have a mess! I usually ended up with most of my totes open and multiple skeins of yarn spread out everywhere! By the time my color choice is made, I’m chomping at the bit to get started, but instead, I have to clean up my mess first. I don’t know about you, but once I have a plan, I can’t wait to get started on it, and spending time playing clean up is a total bummer!

Instead of just guessing which yarn colors will work together, why not use a color wheel to help you decide. Doing that before starting the digging process will make things go much faster for you! You’ll already have an idea of what you want to do before opening a single tote.

Basics of the color wheel...

A basic color wheel usually has 3 sets of colors on it. 3 Primary, 3 secondary and 6 tertiary. You have the primary colors of: red, blue and yellow. The secondary colors which are mixes of the primary colors and are: orange, green and purple (violet). Then you have the tertiary colors, which are mixes of the secondary colors and are: yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple (violet), blue-purple (violet), blue-green, and yellow-green. The colors will be fixed on the color wheel in rainbow order: Reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples.

Monochromatic color scheme
- Colors that are shades of, or tint variations of, the same color.

Pick any color on the color wheel and use variations or different shades of the same color. These colors can create shading effects.
Eg: Blue - Light blue or dark blue

Complementary color scheme
- Colors opposite each other.

Pick any color on the color wheel and choose the color completely opposite of it to find its complementary color. These colors bring out the best in each other by bringing out the brightness, or complementing each other.
Eg: Red - Green

Analogous color scheme
- Colors directly next to (on each side) the color chosen.

Pick any color on the color wheel and choose the colors on each side of it to choose an analogous color scheme. These colors will highlight the chosen color, make it stand out a little more.
Eg: Purple (Violet) - Red-Purple (Violet) and Blue-Purple (Violet)

Triad color scheme
- Colors 3 colors away in a triangle.

Pick any color on the color wheel and choose colors in a triangle (3 colors separating each of other two colors) to work with a triad color scheme. These colors are a little more difficult to work with. If you chose the primary colors, the effect will be that each color competes for attention. This is the most difficult color scheme to work with, and usually works best if you choose a main color then add in very small amounts, or shade variations, of the other two colors. You can use this color scheme to draw the eye throughout your project.
Eg: Blue-Green - Yellow-Orange and Red-Purple (Violet)


A color wheel can have multitudes of different shades of each colors on it, or it can be a simple version, such as the one I used in my examples. The basic concepts of using it are the same. Once your yarn is organized by color, using a color wheel becomes a very simple, time saving way to choose your project colors. Use your imagination and get creative. Be daring and bold. You’ll be surprised at the wonderful results you can come up with!

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