There is more to choosing the right color for your sweater than simply picking out the color you like best from a pile of yarn. When you put a good deal of time and effort onto knitting a sweater you want it to look absolutely stunning when you wear it. Two major factors to consider are which colors look best with your skin tone and which yarn will help you achieve your desired look.

Using Seasonal Color Analysis

Color analysis is the process of determining the colors that best suit your natural coloring. When you wear colors that are well suited to your coloring your skin looks more vibrant and you actually look healthier and more radiant! There are quite a few approaches to analyzing personal coloring but the most well-known is “seasonal” color analysis, which places individual coloring into four seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.

Seasonal color analysis was made popular by Carole Jackson when she released her incredibly popular book “Color Me Beautiful” in 1980. In it she emphasizes the importance of figuring out what works for you and your life specifically, instead of following trends, and the idea of slowly building up a wardrobe around your individual style and color palette.

Sometime in the 1990’s “Color Me Beautiful” increased the number of individual coloring types from 4 to 12 for increased accuracy. However, we will just be covering the original 4 seasons in this module.

Your seasonal type is determined using two basic variables:
1. The undertone of your skin, hair and eyes (warm/golden vs cool/ashy)
2. How light vs deep your overall coloring and specifically your hair is

The seasons represent the four possible variations of these two variables. If your natural hair colour is lighter than medium brown, you would be typed as either a Spring or a Summer; if it’s darker you are a Winter or an Autumn. If your skin tone and hair have a warm undertone, or you are a natural red-head, you would be classed as either a Spring or an Autumn; if your skin has a blue-ish, cool undertone and your hair is more ashy and has no golden or red highlights, you are either a Summer or a Winter. It is important to note that this is a very stripped-down summary of the whole process. The original Color Me Beautiful material provides a much more detailed explanation and also outlines various exceptions.

Finding Your Skin’s Undertone

Your skin’s undertone is the color underneath the surface. You can have the same skin color (ivory, tan, beige, etc) as someone, but a different undertone which might cause you to look completely different.

Undertones are broken down like this:
Cool = pink, red or bluish undertones
Warm = yellow, peachy, golden undertones

If your hair and skin tone have warm undertones, you would be classified as either a Spring or an Autumn. If your skin has a blue-ish, cool undertone and your hair is more ashy with no golden or red highlights, you are either a Summer or a Winter.

Let’s look at some specific ways can you determine which category you fall into in regard to undertones.

1. Vein Test
Push your sleeves up and look at the veins on the inside of your wrist. Are they blueish or greenish? If they look more blue, you likely have cool undertones. If the veins look greenish, you’re warm. It’s worth noting, warm girls, that you’re veins aren’t actually green — they look that way because you’re seeing them through yellow-toned skin (If we’re mixing colors then yellow + blue = green).

2. Jewelry Test
Think about whether you look better in silver or gold jewelry. Not which you like more, but which actually makes you look more radiant, glowing, and awake. Typically, women with cool undertones look better in silver and platinum metals, and warm-toned women look better in gold and rose gold.

3. Neutral Test
Think about what neutral shades are most flattering on you. Does your skin, eyes, and face look better in bright white and black hues? Or are ivory, off-whites, and brown/tan shades better on you? The former means you’re probably cool-toned, and the latter, warm.

4. Eye and Hair Color Test
Your natural eye and hair colors can also help figure out your undertones. Usually, cool toned people have eyes that are blue, grey-blue, grey, cool green, grey brown or slate and have blonde, brown, or black hair with blue, silver, violet and ash undertones.
Conversely, warm-toned women usually have clear blue, turquoise, green, hazel, light brown, olive or warm green eyes with blonde, strawberry blonde, red, brown, or black hair. Their hair tends to have gold, red, orange, or yellow undertones.

5. Sun Test
When you’re out in the sun, does your skin turn a golden-brown, or does it burn and turn pink first? If you fit into the former category, you’re warm-toned, while cool tones tend to burn – fair-skinned cool girls will simply burn, while medium-skinned cool-toned girls will burn then tan.

Light vs. Deep Coloring & Basic Color Palettes

Now that you’ve determined your skin’s undertone we are one step closer to determining your color season. Warm undertones mean that you are either a Spring or an Autumn. Cool undertones mean that you are either a Summer or a Winter. The depth of your coloring is determined by your eye and hair color. Once you’ve determined your color season you can begin to look at color palettes with colors specifically suited to your natural coloring. Below you’ll find four quick profiles of the seasons and 12 typically suggested shades. Go through each profile and compare their descriptions to your own colouring (natural hair colour and bare skin). Ignore your favourite colours and your wardrobe. You are trying to get an accurate view of your colour type and the colours that suit you best, regardless of whether you like them or not. If you find it difficult to figure out your season, you might be a less pronounced or more neutral type, and will have better luck with the more refined 12-type system. Not every color in your season’s palette will be your best but it will give you a good place to start.

IF YOU’RE A SUMMER…
You’ll have a cool skin tone and a low level of contrast between your hair and eye color. However you can also have cool deep hair, eye color and light skin. Your eyes have a soft, cool tone quality to them, such as slate and blue. Often with some grey to them, such as greyish hazel, greyish blue, greyish green. Your skin is dominantly cool with pink or blue undertone (without a tan)Your hair color is in general cool and ashy, with little or no red or golden highlights. Hair color within the Summer season ranges from the lightest and ashiest blonde to deep ash brown.

IF YOU’RE AN AUTUMN…
You have a lot of depth to your coloring with golden undertones including a warm undertone to your skin. Bluish or pinkish tints may exist but the warmth is dominant. Peachy skin, which is a warm type of pink is considered warm. You have a deep, earth tone quality to your eye color such as black-brown, deep to medium brown, bright brown, deep green, light to dark hazel, dark blue, mixed blue and green eyes (some gray or/and yellow in them). Hair that is darker than medium brown gives you some depth of color with an overall deep and warm look.

IF YOU’RE A WINTER…
You have a lot of depth to your coloring with bluish or pinkish undertone. Your eyes are intense and you have a high contrast between your hair color, eye color and skin tone or an overall deep look with olive to black skin, dark eyes and black-brown hair. Winter coloring is very vivid. Your hair is typically very dark, ranging from deep medium brown to jet black. As you age your hair will turn a grey or salt and pepper color. In some instances a Winter can have blonde hair, but it is very cool and almost white looking.

IF YOU’RE A SPRING…
You have a low level of contrast between your hair, skin and eye color. You have a clear, warm and golden undertone to your overall coloring. If your skin appears pink, it’s more likely a peachy warm pink.You have earthy and summer tonal qualities to your eyes, ranging from turquoise blue to hazel and sparkly light brown. Your hair is somewhere between dark to medium brown, coppery red, strawberry, deep golden and light blonde. If your hair is dark it most likely has golden or reddish highlights. Your coloring is generally warm but bright. The majority of red-heads fall within this season because of the dominant warm, red hair color.

How Yarn Color Affects Your Sweater

After you’ve chosen a color that looks excellent on your skin tone you’ll need to choose a yarn that has been dyed in a way that will help you create an attractive garment. Knowing the different options is the first step towards making a great yarn choice. It is important to note that the most commonly used sweater yarns are solids, semi-solids, heathered and tweed. Their popularity is due mainly to the fact that they show stitch patterns well and have a classic look which adds to the longevity of the sweater.

SOLID
Solid colored yarn is just one color, no variation. This type of coloring is great for textured stitch patterns, cables and lace

SEMI-SOLID
Semi-solid yarns are usually kettle dyed and will have a little bit of variation, while retaining one overall color.

HEATHERED
Heathered yarn is made when two colors of fiber are processed into one yarn. This coloring tends to add depth and richness the overall color. Great for textured stitches.

TWEED
Tweed yarn is a solid color with flecks of a few other colors. This type of yarn tends to look a bit rustic. Great for men!

HAND PAINTED
Hand painted yarn is created in small batches and has lots of color variation within each skein. Because of its unpredictable nature it is not recommended for sweater projects.

VARIEGATED
Variegated yarn changes from one color to another in short or long intervals. When knitting a sweater the “stripes” of variegation will be different on the sleeves than on the body of the sweater. Best knit in stockinette or used for edgings and embellishments.

GRADIENT
Gradient yarn changes from one color to another color over very long intervals sometimes over the course of multiple skeins. This produces an ombre effect and can look lovely on sweaters.

Now that you know what options you have as far as yarn coloring goes you can make a well informed decision about which style of yarn you’d like to use for your perfect sweater!

Moving On

In the next section you’ll learn how to search through thousands of sweater patterns in second and find the pattern you’ve been dreaming of!