Carding for Color Part I: Understanding and Analyzing Color

By Deb Gerish

Spinners have a lot of artistic control over their raw material. We can choose a fiber or fibers to spin, then we can manipulate diameter, twist, plies, and yarn texture. Add in the dimension of color, and we can create handspun yarns that commercial mills can't reproduce. Personally, I find all that freedom a little scary—color in particular has always intimidated me, and I've never gone to art school. But when I wanted to "design" colors for my handspun, a little color theory went a long way.

If you want to blend your own colors, theory can help you too. Before you pull out the hand carders (or whatever blending tool you prefer), read this tutorial and try out the exercises. You'll probably find, as I did, that your confidence with color grows very quickly.