Lion Brand Notebook ®
Another lifetime ago, or so it seems, I used to dye yarn. I began just looking for something to go along with my love of designing. Along the way I re-discovered a love of color.
I say “rediscovered” because as a little kid I know I had absolutely no fear of colors or prints and paired them together wildly. Somewhere along the way I started to play it safe and stick with more subtle shades over primarily neutral backgrounds. And there’s nothing at all wrong with this. But as I began mixing dyes and throwing colors together I found the process was liberating.
A thing I noticed in my corner of the yarn community was that others felt the same way I had. They loved different colors, but had a hesitation around using them. Variegated and hand dyed skeins were purchased and stashed until they had some idea to use them for, generally this was shawls and socks.
Bright or mutli-colored yarns don’t need to be regulated to small projects. If you find yourself attracted to them, but wouldn’t want an entire variegated or hot pink sweater, there are ways to tone them down and pair them up and still get that extra pizazz in your projects.
Coming up in the future I will be taking some Lion Brand yarns and pairing together different colors and yarn lines into squares and swatches to see how they play together. If you have any questions about certain colors or yarns and how they might play together let us know!
How do you pair your multi or bright yarns? Post your photos on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and tag them #LionBrand so we can see your favorite color pairings!
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Nancy Pawlowski
I like pairing bright colors with black or navy or dark grey. That makes the brights seem brighter. If I want to tone it down then I use off-white or cream colors with the brights. I have some scrap afghans that mix all colors. I made a corner to corner in squares, a diagonal garter stitch afghan, and various crocheted afghans that I have donated over the years. I love colors and can’t wait to see the next blog installment on how you put together the new colors.
Deborah Hester
I love to knit top down sweaters. I will start with a fun variegated yarn in a fun color for the yoke and tone it down with a solid that coordinates to soften the sweater down. Have made many scrappy Afghanis with lots of bright fun colors with black or cream to blend it all together.. Color is so much fun look out the window and see the get colors our Lord has made!
Carol Zito
I love bright colors! But it depends on the person I’m making the item for. I look to nature for inspiration.
Lorraine Willis
I love all the striped and variegated colors. I would probably buy more if there were an actual crochet swatch within the description.. I have tried some and was surprised at how they look when crocheted.