Colour

The majority of finished knitting projects do not use more than a single colour of yarn. Some uses other ways to obtain multiple colours. They sometimes do self striping (changing yarns every few rows) or variegating (changing colours every few stitches). When knitting or weaving yarns with colour changing, it is advisable to interchange every other row. This technique will let the knitted clothing/garment have an arbitrary colour variation. There are also other more complex techniques which allow large fields of colour, such as intarsia, busy small scale patterns of colour like Fair Isle, or slip stitch colouring and double knitting.

Knitting yarn is available either dyed or natural in a number of colours. A vast array of colours is available, consisting of single and multi colours. Yarns can be dyed either in batches or lots, and between those lots the colours match almost perfectly. Single colours can be harmonised or space dyed. Painted, self-striping and self-patterning yarns such as Fair Isle, jacquard, or chevron are some of the latest innovations in knitting yarns. A yarn of various hues is known as a colorway, while a yarn with various shades of a similar colour is known as ombre. For instance, a red, green and yellow yarn could be described as “Parrot Colorway” by its manufacturer. Tweed yarns may perhaps contain bigger amounts of dissimilar coloured fibres, whilst heathered yarns may have different colours of small quantities of fibre.