Creating a Color Scheme Based on an Overdyed Thread

Yesterday I pulled and bought threads for two mystery projects. These pose particular problems for the stitcher because you don’t know what the final project will look like (that’s the mystery) so you are picking by faith.

Most mystery projects allow you to pick your own colors and list threads in a table, you write your own color choices in a column next to the designers. As you stitch you substitute your own choices for the designer’s. Of course, you have to have faith that your choices will work, but that’s part of the fun.

I took two very different approaches to creating these schemes, so I thought I would share them with you.

These threads are for the CyberPointers President’s Challenge Project, Carnivale. It calls for metallics, two sizes of pearl cotton, and floss all in similar colors. My scheme is done in silks instead of cotton, largely because I don’t have much cotton in the stash, but I have lots of Grandeur and Elegance, two sizes of silk pearl.

The first choice was the overdye. Looking at the thread list, I noticed the designer had lots of colors, so I chose Tahiti (I know it’s my go to overdye) because it too has many colors. From the rainbow which is Tahiti I chose to emphasize yellow and violet, with red as my accent.

First I picked the metallic, the violet which is needed in two sizes. Since this metallic is pretty matte, I wanted two similar ones and found them in my stash of sparkle braid. One is blue (close to the blue-violet) and one is my accent color, a gold-infused red.

Then on to the pearls. I started with the pearl #8 since I had the most of them and picked three, blue, yellow, and the darker blue violet. I figured one of these would also come in Grandeur (#5 pearl) and knew all of them came in Splendor, which is my floss. I looked through my stash and found nothing to match, so I bought at the store. I found the matching colors in all three threads in the blue and added the threads I needed.

For a bonus I picked a pretty pale blue-violet in Baroque Silk (another silk pearl) and Splendor.

Finally I needed to buy a second skein of Tahiti. The store didn’t have dyelots with the same initials, so they didn’t coordinate, so I bought two skeins of the Tahiti they had.

Tomorrow another approach, choosing color based on your stash.