Most of us have a favorite color. Mine is green. Or maybe blue. Some will say fire engine red or tangerine orange. I know some little girls who have to have everything purple.

Funny thing is, what I call purple may not match what they think of as purple. Purple to one person may look like red-violet to another.

My favorite green comes from a northern woods in early summer, before the heat dusts all the leaves. An intense green with blue and yellow overtones. Can you see it? Just picture a woody stream with the sunlight streaming through the branches.

For every hue, there are shades, tints, tones, and temperatures depending on how much black, white, gray, red or blue is mixed in. A color can be warm (more red) or cool (more blue). And for every shade, tint, and tone, there are some really great names for them.

Sierra (deep brown). Yale (dusty blue). Sapphire (which actually looks more green than blue to me). Grotto (light lavender). Summer Glade (soft light green). Light red. Dark red. In one yarn company’s line, the light red is darker than the dark red. Go figure.

Yarn isn’t the only medium where colors boggle the mind. Just stand in front of the paint chips at the hardware store – the color choices are overwhelming. Many paint displays allow you to change the lighting so you can better match what’s in your home. What looks light blue in incandescent light may look white in fluorescent light.

How we see a color is affected by its surroundings. Put purple yarn on a light background, then on a dark background. Same yarn, different perspective.

A gray circle on a white background will look darker than that same gray circle place on a black background. A room with windows facing west or south will get more yellow light than a north-facing room. Put a shady tree outside those windows and the color changes.

Practically speaking, one of the first decisions I make when planning a weaving project is the color. If I want to make something green, but don’t have enough of the right green, how can I blend what’s on my shelf to make what’s in my head? Sometimes adding an accent of a complementary color will intensify the main color. Too much of that complementary though will just gray it out.

Color is very personal. Everyone has one or two favorites, colors they gravitate toward and feel comfortable with. Mine is green. What is your favorite color?

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare’s Juliet made that argument in “Romeo and Juliet.” I would add, a color by any other name …

Blending colors on the warping board

I ran into a color conundrum recently. My husband needed a pair of gray slacks for work to replace a worn pair. I went to a local department store, but all they had on hand were navy, black, and khaki in his style and size. Same story in the other local department stores. You’d think gray was something rare.

Next stop—on line. Ah-ha, “Dark Pebble”! Sound like gray to me. What do you think? I hit “submit order” and waited. When the “dark pebble” slacks arrived, they didn’t look like gray. They looked a little too brown to me; well maybe a little gray, but definitely not the same color as the worn pants. In fact, they were the same color as the pants I call taupe that are already hanging in the closet.

Left to right: Worn grey, worn taupe, new “dark pebble”

What’s “dark pebble” to them sure looks like “taupe” to me.

The incident reminded me of the “purple” bedroom in my childhood home. When it came time to paint, my mother chose a lovely lilac for their bedroom. The painter came, a crusty old local contractor. He took one look at the color choices, and shook his head. “Who paints a bedroom purple!” He and my mom went round and round about the color, but my mom insisted and the color did look quite nice when all was said and done.

What’s lilac to one person is purple to another.

Color is very subjective and color names can be misleading. Even something as seemingly straight forward as “navy” can range from deepest dark to decidedly lighter. Add variations in dye lots and it can be quite the challenge matching one yarn to another.

The medium blue bands are actually two shades of the same blue

One of my favorite weaving work-arounds is blending colors. On a recent project, I used two yarns of the same name, same company, but purchased some time apart. They looked decidedly different. If I had used first the older cone, then the newer, the change would have been noticeable. To lessen the difference, I wound the strands side-by-side. At a distance, the eye blends those close shades and the color looks uniform.

This also works with different colors of close hues or shades. Blending the colors across the warp adds interest to fabric, and can give the effect of more colors than you actually have in the warp. Combine three colors to make five or six. Multiply five into 15 or more.

Playing with colors can brighten cold, gray days of winter–no matter what color you call it!