One of the most exciting parts of starting a project is picking out your yarn colors, right? Even though the pattern shows the item made up in a sample color (or maybe even a range of sample colors), you don’t have to follow the pattern!

Today, we’ll pick out some amazing colors for our dragons as we crochet-a-long!

Raid your stash

Selecting yarns for a project is a balancing act… you want to come up with a great color combination, but also use up yarns that you have in your stash, if you can!

If using up yarn that you already have is one of your goals for this project… then you’re going to have to drag your yarn out and look at it! If you’ve cataloged your yarn using Ravelry’s Stash Feature, then you can look at all of your yarn virtually, and not make a big mess on your living room floor.

Pull together any yarns that are the weight/fiber that you want to use. Eliminate any balls of yarn that aren’t enough yardage for the project (read this post on how to determine yardage by weighing the ball) and then you’re down to your options!

Pick a great color combo

Now that you know what you’re working with, you can plan your colors! The Choose Your Own Adventure pattern that we’re using only calls for 2 colors… but you don’t need to follow those rules! Do you want different colored wings? (or, do you want to use up a tiny ball of yarn?) Then go for it!

Here are some color palettes that I’ve put together that I think would make fabulous dragons:

Sometimes (when you’re trying to use up stash yarn), you might find that you have a fabulous color palette in mind, but need to buy a skein of yarn to make it all work… and that’s okay! If you’re buying the yarn for your project all at once, you might find it helpful to stick to one line of yarn: colors for a line are often developed so that they coordinate well together!

So, what’s your palette?

I’ve decided to go with using 3 colors: blue, pink and purple. Here’s my sketch:

What’s your combo?

If you’re not crocheting along with us yet, it’s not too late to start! Click here for details on the crochet-a-long. All month long, I’ll be posting helpful tips on how to crochet your dragon, so if you’re feeling a little nervous about crocheting an animal, this is a great time to get lots of help & support!