How to Choose Colours for a Crochet Blanket: Three Palettes, One Pattern

Choosing yarn colours is where most blanket plans stall. The stitch is easy to learn; picking four shades that look good together for 150-odd centimetres of fabric is the bit that keeps a basket of yarn waiting for weeks. So instead of starting with colour theory, this guide starts with one pattern and shows three very different ways to colour it.

The pattern is our own beginner's striped blanket tutorial by Katie from The Queen Stitch: a chain of 64 plus one, rows of half treble crochet worked into the back loop only, and a colour change whenever you like. It's worked in Paintbox Yarns Wool Mix Super Chunky on a 10mm hook, and Katie's version measures 88 x 152cm (35 x 60in). Because every row is the same, the colours do all the design work, which makes it the perfect test case.

A quick note on the pictures: the palettes below are editorial shade pairings built from the current Wool Mix Super Chunky range, shown as product shots of each yarn. They are not swatches or blankets we have crocheted, so treat them as starting points and check the shades together in daylight before you commit.

Before you pick: three things that matter more than the colour wheel

1. Value beats hue

Value is how light or dark a shade is. Two colours with very different hues but the same value (a mid pink and a mid blue, say) blur together from across the room, while a pale and a dark version of the same colour make a crisp stripe. A quick check: lay the balls in a row and take a black-and-white photo on your phone. If two balls look like the same grey in the photo, they will read as one wide band in the blanket.

2. Decide your proportions before you buy

Equal stripes in four colours give an even, cheerful rhythm. If you want something calmer, let one shade dominate. A useful starting split is roughly 60/30/10: one main shade for most of the rows, a secondary shade for about a third, and a small amount of accent. You'll buy more of the main shade, so decide this before you order.

3. The texture changes how colours meet

Working into the back loop leaves a ridge on every row, and that ridge catches the light. In practice it softens the line between two stripes slightly, so neighbouring shades that are very close in value can disappear into each other. Give yourself a little more contrast than you think you need.

Palette 1: Soft neutrals (tonal and calm)

For a throw that lives on a grey sofa or a cream bed, a tonal palette is the safest choice and the easiest to live with. The trick is to keep a clear step in value from light to dark so the stripes still show.

• Paper White as the lightest step
• Misty Grey for a gentle second tone
• Slate Grey as the darker anchor
• Soft Fudge to warm the whole thing up

How to arrange it: work from light to dark and back again in wide bands, or keep Paper White as the main shade (around 60% of rows) with thinner stripes of the other three. Adding one warm brown to cool greys stops a neutral blanket looking flat.

Palette 2: Coastal blues (analogous)

Analogous colours sit next to each other on the colour wheel, so they always get along. Blues and a single green give you a seaside feel without any clashes, and they're forgiving for a first blanket.

• Duck Egg Blue as the light, airy base
• Dolphin Blue as a mid tone
• Sailor Blue for depth
• Spearmint Green as the neighbour on the wheel

How to arrange it: because these shades are related, value contrast does the heavy lifting. Put Duck Egg Blue next to Sailor Blue rather than next to Dolphin Blue, and use Spearmint Green as the occasional surprise stripe rather than a main band. If you want the stripes even sharper, add Paper White from Palette 1 as a separating row.

Palette 3: Mustard and plum (complementary)

Complementary colours sit opposite each other on the wheel, so yellow and purple create the strongest possible contrast. Used at full strength in equal amounts they can be loud, so this palette pairs each with a quieter partner.

• Mustard Yellow as the bright accent
• Pansy Purple as its opposite
• Dark Aubergine as a deep, grounding plum
• Vanilla Cream to give the eye somewhere to rest

How to arrange it: try Vanilla Cream as the main shade with Dark Aubergine as the secondary, then use Mustard Yellow sparingly, maybe one narrow stripe in every repeat. The yellow will feel brighter when there is less of it. Pansy Purple works as the mid tone between the deep aubergine and the pale cream.

Plan the stripes on paper first

Katie's tutorial lets you change colour whenever you like, which is lovely for freedom and tricky for planning. A five-minute sketch saves a lot of frogging. Here's a hypothetical example, worked out on paper rather than crocheted, to show the method:

• Decide the finished length: we'll use the tutorial's 152cm (60in).
• Choose a repeat: for Palette 3, say one wide cream band, one aubergine band, one narrow mustard stripe and one purple band.
• Give each band a width in centimetres, for example 10cm cream, 6cm aubergine, 2cm mustard and 6cm purple. That's a 24cm repeat, so you'd fit about six repeats in 152cm, with a little left over for a matching cream band at each end.
• Crochet the first band, measure how many rows give you 10cm with your own tension, and use that number for every band of the same width.

Measuring your own rows matters because everyone's tension is a little different, and super chunky yarn magnifies small differences. Measuring the first band also tells you quickly whether your blanket will be the width you expected.

How much yarn of each shade?

The tutorial lists three balls of each colour used. If you change the proportions (a 60/30/10 split instead of equal stripes, for example) your main shade will need more and your accent shade less. The simplest approach is to work out what share of the total length each shade covers, then compare it with the pattern's total quantity. Ball weight and length are listed on the Paintbox Yarns Wool Mix Super Chunky page. Buying one extra ball of your main shade is a sensible safety margin, and it means you won't be hunting for a matching shade halfway through.

Three mistakes to avoid

• Choosing on screen only. Monitors shift colours; check the balls together in daylight before winding or cutting any yarn.
• Four mid tones. If nothing is clearly light or clearly dark, the blanket will look muddy. Every palette above has at least one pale and one deep shade for this reason.
• Weaving in later. With frequent colour changes the ends pile up. Katie shows how to crochet over the old colour as you go, which is well worth learning before you start.

Want to go deeper?

If you enjoy the theory side, our guide to colour theory for knitting and crochet explains complementary, analogous and triadic schemes in more detail. For more stripe and block designs to try your palette on, browse our crochet blanket and throw patterns, or see the whole Paintbox Yarns range.