With my kits I pick the colour palette for you. When I do this I aim to pick colours that come mostly from the threads that I stock, this helps reduce the amount of different colours I need to hold to fulfil kit orders. Where I can’t find the right shade (it’s always the green that isn’t quite right!) I look to my wider thread stash and thread cards to pick the perfect colour.

With my free patterns, I provide the design and leave the stitch and colour choices to you. I do this for two reasons firstly, I want you to feel like you can make those creative choices for yourself. I know this isn’t how everyone likes to work but the option is there for you to try. Secondly, if you do want a little more support and guidance and to benefit from my stitch and colour expertise then I offer this detail in the paid for version of the pattern.

Here are a few tips to pick a colour palette for your embroidery:

1. Start from real life

When I’m designing patterns I use photos to guide me on form and colour choices. Quite often flora come in different colour variations and I pick the colour that I love the most (or have the best thread match for). In the case of these Welsh poppies I went for a slightly more orange colour as that is a variation I had come across and I preferred it to the yellow.

2. Look at how you can combine colours

When I originally stitched the crocus pattern I stitched in solid purple and knew it didn’t look right so I experimented with adding a darker purple which helped to define the individual petals better. I also combined one thread of yellow with one of orange for the centre of the crocus as neither colour on their own was quite right.

3. Go abstract

You don’t have to use real life colours when picking your colour palettes. A great example of this is this piece I stitched from a kit by Lucy Freeman.

This is obviously a monstera leaf but the traditional greens have been replaced with pinks and greys.

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