top down: color choices

We welcome back Elizabeth Doherty for another guest post today: this one focuses on color combinations. Oh, the choices.

One of the best parts of putting together a collection is choosing colors for the designs. For Top Down we kept to an aqua/orange/grey palette, but with the vast range of colors that Quince offers in their wool yarns, really, we could have gone anywhere color wise.

For Serif (pictured above), the collection's color-blocked cardi, we settled on a combination of Sedum and Twig. When I began knitting the sample I realized that these were perfect fox colors. Joy!

 

There are many ways that you can go in choosing colors for this design. I'm partial to the more muted shades, as shown in the above swatch, but combining two reds, or mixing a bright, saturated color like Bosc with a grey could be fun, too. And stripes. I always want stripes.

 

I like to mock up color choices when possible. Often this will be in the form of a swatch, but if I don't have the yarn right at hand, I'll resort to my illustration software to try to visualize what those color choices will look like. Shown here are a few combinations to spark your imagination—but I'd love to know which colors you'd combine!

Thanks so much, Elizabeth, for these insights into your design process!

We love seeing these different color combinations and the variety of results that can be had by pairing similar, or boldly contrasted, colors together. Color choice is one of the many things that make beginning a new project so exciting, and a perfect way to really make a sweater suit your personal style. Which color combo speaks to you? Let us know in the comments.

From now through September we are hosting a Top Down KAL in our Ravelry group. Come join us!