{"id":21130,"date":"2021-01-11T15:46:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T20:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=21130"},"modified":"2021-12-31T11:36:05","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T16:36:05","slug":"yarn-colour-swatch-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/yarn-colour-swatch-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Designer Toolkit: Yarn Colour Swatch Box"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the holidays, I decided to give myself a fun organisation project: creating a box of yarn swatches for all my amigurumi yarns, so it&#8217;ll be easy to see all my options and make choices.<\/p>\n<p>Being able to see at a glance all the yarns I have available for my designs is so handy &#8211; this could be a really useful project for you too, if you make a lot of amigurumi and have a large yarn stash!<\/p>\n<p>Here is the glorious result:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches3.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t it wonderful?! It&#8217;s like looking at\u00a0a selection box of\u00a0chocolates, but calorie-free and without the one that nobody likes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches10.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s so\u00a0much pretty colour here, and so much potential for what those colours could become&#8230; I feel like I&#8217;m an artist and this is my paint box.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Make a\u00a0Swatch Box?<\/h2>\n<p>As\u00a0a professional\u00a0amigurumi designer, I have <strong>a lot<\/strong> of yarn in my stash. More specifically, a\u00a0lot of worsted weight acrylic from several brands. Some are close enough in weight and appearance to be mixed within a project, and others aren&#8217;t (just look at my <a href=\"\/blog\/worsted-weight-yarn-comparison\/\">worsted weight yarn comparison<\/a> to see how broad a category &#8216;worsted weight acrylic yarn&#8217; really is!)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches7.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>All my ami yarns are filed in plastic drawers, and every time I need to pull yarn options for a new project, I have to open several drawers, grab multiple balls of yarn, and then select the best combination of shades that could work for what I have in mind and\u00a0also match in weight, sheen and texture.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches8.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This often leaves me with 10 or more balls of yarn scattered around and the hassle of cramming\u00a0all the rejected yarns back into their appropriate (and usually overstuffed) drawers. Not ideal.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches6.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Making the Swatch Box<\/h2>\n<p>I bought lots of the plastic bobbins that are usually used for storing embroidery floss, and wrapped each one with a single layer of yarn, leaving a small space at the top to write the colour name. I used the slits at the bottom of the bobbin to hold the yarn ends in place. To finish each bobbin, I used a yarn needle to pass the yarn ends beneath the wrapped yarn on the back of each bobbin, then trimmed the excess.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches2.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I labelled each bobbin with a simple code (due to lack of space):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>top left corner :\u00a0brand (e.g. B = Bernat)<\/li>\n<li>top right corner: yarn line (e.g. S = Satin)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And then wrote out the full colour name below that.<\/p>\n<p>I found a plastic divided box that had sections large enough to hold several bobbins, and organised the swatches first by brand and yarn line, then by colour family.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches9.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Do you think I have enough yarn options? (Trick question: of course I don&#8217;t! That&#8217;s what the extra space and spare bobbins are for&#8230;)<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>After the Swatch Box<\/h2>\n<p>This box has changed everything for me. Today I pulled shades for a potential upcoming design, and I just opened the box and could see all my options at once. Within a couple of\u00a0minutes, I had a selection ready to go, and now I can just go to the appropriate yarn\u00a0drawer (as indicated from the bobbin) and grab only the shades I need to use.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches1.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I can use the holes at the top of each bobbin to clip the collection together while I use them so none go astray.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches4.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And, when I&#8217;m finished, I can easily refile the swatch bobbins in the box.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches5.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Yes, I &#8216;wasted&#8217; about 2ft of each yarn in making these bobbins, but it was definitely worth it to me &#8211; just opening the box and looking at my yarn palette is so inspiring!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/images\/swatches3.jpg\" alt=\"worsted weight yarn colour swatches\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now I can&#8217;t wait to grab my hook and get &#8216;painting&#8217; (well, &#8216;sculpting&#8217; would be more accurate) with some of these pretties&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the holidays, I decided to give myself a fun organisation project: creating a box of yarn swatches for all my amigurumi yarns, so it&#8217;ll be easy to see all my options and make choices. Being able to see at a glance all the yarns I have available for my designs is so handy &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft-room","category-crochet","category-craft-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}