5 steps to color solutions for your hooked rug

1. ARE THEY THE SAME VALUE?

Color value refers to the amount of grey in a color. The grey scale goes from white, the lightest ,to black, the darkest. Squint at the two pieces. Is one a lot lighter? Darker? If one is darker, it may have more grey in the color. If one is lighter, it may have less grey. Colors with close to the same amount of grey will look complimentary to one another.

2. ARE THEY BOTH WARM OR COOL COLORS?

To achieve a harmonious feel to your project, keep the colors in the same palette- either warm or cool. An example of warm colors would be an autumn color selection of red orange, burnt umber, yellow gold, yellow green.

A cool palette would be wintery colors such as blue white, blue purple, crimson, spruce or blue green.

In these two lists, notice how warm colors include yellow while cool colors include blue. In your rug hooking project, keep the palette the same, either warm or cool. Let's say you need white. If you have a warm palette, the white will have a tint of pink or yellow. If a cool palette, a blue or grey tint will be present.

3.  WHAT ONE COLOR ARE YOU DRAWN TO?

Let that color be your starting point and build from there.

4. MIX PATTERN AND TEXTURE WITHIN A COLOR HARMONY

Use some overdyed plaid wool, roving, linens and silks in the same color to add interest and depth to your project.

5. GO EASY ON THE RED

Red is known as a psychoactive color. This means that your eye is instinctively drawn to it. Look at examples of paintings. The smallest spot of red attracts your attention. The same is true in rug hooking. Use it to move your eye around your project. You will possibly want to locate some red in an upper or lower off center area. Smack dab in the center is probably a bad idea.