The Color Grid.

A few weeks ago, our hero, Clara Parkes, posted a particularly intriguing review on her excellent and very informative blog, Knitter's Review. As soon as Anne arrived at the shop that day, I said, "Did you read Clara today?" Her response: "I already ordered it."

The subject of that Knitter's Review post, and the object of our desire, was the Color Grid, a tool developed by hand-dyer Gail Callahan for choosing colors. The Color Grid is a sturdy little pamphlet with a spectrum of colors arranged in a grid, as the name suggests. One of the panels is black, with holes of different sizes.

Hold the largest hole over the color that most closely matches your main color, and the smaller holes highlight the closest relatives of that main color.

A thin, rectangular slot below those holes highlights a contrasting color which Callahan calls the "spark." A bit of that spark color is sure to make your main color sing because of their relationship on the color wheel.

The color wheel, by the way, has always been on my list of Things I One Day Plan to Understand. Until I take the time to sit down with some color theory and study, the Color Grid will join my intuition in my color-choosing toolbox. And along with the color-choosing comes my favorite part: diving into a pile of knitting books, preferably of the colorwork variety. Many of these books offer more information on color theory, if you're curious about exactly how the Color Grid is working, and how colors interact in knitted patterns of many kinds.

What a fun toy it is! Come by the shop to snag a Color Grid of your own.