Color Trends and Favs

I've been looking around at crochet trends, and I'm seeing a lot of predictions about yarn colors for 2026. Since Pantone made the non-choice of white as color of the year (white is a shade, not a color) I see it mentioned sometimes. White is a nice shade, especially for use as a connector and/or border, but not what I'd consider inspiring at all.

Honestly, I tend to follow my own preferences as to color rather than jump on the latest trend bandwagon. This pic of yarn in soft, natural-looking colors is a good example of what I always like.

Nature and photography often capture my attention and jumpstart imagination. This pic of a crocheted flower on an old gray wrought iron fence made me envision a throw with the same colors.

When I do want to go colorful, I generally opt for variegated yarn, which I adore. The way it color-clusters as I crochet is so much fun to see.

Green happens to be my favorite color (I reserve the right to change my mind in the future) and I like to include some shade of green yarn in most multicolor projects I make. However, I'm pushing myself this year to work outside my comfort zone, so I expect to be exploring new combinations and use colors that I usually don't, such as yellow, pink and black. Hey, maybe I'll do a yellow/pink/black project to cover them all. :)

When you're considering what colors to choose from your stash to use in your next crochet project, my advice is to trust your instincts over trends. As 2026 got started I decided to use a yarn I love in colors I generally don't put together (pink and orange), and it made me very happy for several reasons. These colors are the favorites of a dear friend of mine, so I thought about her a lot while I was crocheting that throw. They also remind me of the beautiful winter sunsets we have here in lake country.

Image Credits: Yarn basket by MissKarin; fence and flower by Kim van Bijsterveldt ; and variegated yarn by Kerstin Riemer, all from Pixabay

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On the Beach

Last week my guy and I went to walk Daytona Beach, which was mostly (and eerily) deserted. This is what our beaches used to look like when I was a kid. It was a beautiful day, cold and breezy but calm. It feels like 2026 is getting off to the right start.

Eight Plus Numbers

When I was looking up the retail on the small lot of yarn plus a tapestry kit I got a lot of surprises. This Red Heart Roll with It Sparkle skein in "Diamonds" was actually a cake that sells $10.99 on Yarnspirations. The lot included two Red Heart Super Saver Jumbo skeins, which retail for $8.99 each, and stuck in the center of the buff color I found a 5.5 mm crochet hook. This is a skein of 100% Icelandic wool, which can be really expensive. It's marked with a price tag of $7.00, and I found it selling for $8.00 online. The needlepoint kit is the biggest surprise of all. It makes a pillow, and hails from the UK, where it sells for £45.00 ($60.76 US). Since it's flamingos I definitely have to finish it if I can. Altogether my eight plus lot retails for $125.04; I paid $21.30 total for the lot with the buy-it-now option and one penny shipping. I indeed got a very nice bargain.

Not So Cheerful

Since I finished the January crazy-quilted tote for my calendar project I jumped back on making the Iris throw, working this time with Bernat Giggles in Cheerful Blue. From the start this skein seemed determined to give me trouble, not anything cheerful, as I had to contend with a big knot of yarn I tugged out along with the center pull strand (I didn't take a pic of that.) This yarn is 90% acrylic and 10% nylon, and come in a 3.5 oz. skein. Not sure why they added nylon to the acrylic, perhaps to make it softer. The color is nice, and it's fairly smooth, but it also splits easily and wants to pucker, pop and untwist, especially when you tear out stitches. Naturally I had to tear out two and a half rows to correct two mistakes, which aggravated me because the yarn was untwisting when I went to crochet it again. To add icing to this terrible cake, I ran out of the yarn on the final row. To keep the symmetry with the other sections I had to pull a compatible color fro...

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