Updated 10/15/18
The floor is finished in my office but the computer won’t be set up until late today. In the meantime enjoy the article from the archives. See the office reveal on Thursday.
Grays can be a real problem in threads. You think you have found the perfect one, you get it home and UGH, it looks horrible with your other threads.
This is because there are three types of grays, warm, cool, and neutral. Warm grays have gray plus a bit of a warm color. Cool grays have gray with a bit of a cool color. Neutral grays are just mixtures of black and white.
If you pick a grey for an all-cool color piece and it’s a warm grey, you get that UGH feeling. A neutral, or even better, a cool gray will look great.
But often it’s hard to tell.
Here’s what to do at a shop or when shopping your stash.
Take a skein of red thread and with a skein of blue thread. Put one next to a possible gray thread. Then do the same wit the other thread. If it is a neutral gray, it will look warm next to the blue thread and cool next to the red thread.
If it doesn’t do both, it isn’t a neutral gray.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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