Three-Colors Combinations for Knitted Rugs

Often we talk about colors in a loose way. We may think of red, pink and maroon as three colors, while in fact pink and maroon are also based on the basic color: red.

In this article I will give some guidelines for combining different colors, I derive these combinations from the standard color wheel according to guidelines used by interior decorators.

In choosing colors for a project, it is also important that we pay attention to the proportions in which we use colors and the intensity of the colors we use. When all colors have the same brightness, they may fight each other and be unpleasant to the eye. It is better to have a range of values and use them in quantities that produce a good balance. Generally the higher the intensity, the smaller the quantity.

Hoping not to bore you, I will list the color wheel colors and then I will show three ways to combine these colors. The color wheel contains primary, secondary and tertiary colors. If you wish you can also draw the color wheel, If you study this for a while, you will get a good grasp of the order of these colors.

With yellow at the top of the colour wheel and moving clockwise:
1,5 and 9 are primary colours
3, 7 and 11 are secondary colours, which result from combinations of primary colors
2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 are tertiary colours, which result from combinations of primary and secondary colors.


1. yellow,
2. yellow green,
3. green
4. blue green,
5. blue,
6. blue violet
7. violet,
8. red violet,
9. red,
10. orange red,
11.orange,
12. yellow orange,

Note that colors 2 to 7 are the cool colors The remainder are the warm colors.

One way of combining three colors is to take colors with a common base. These can be found next to each other on the color wheel, For example, red violet, red and orange red. These combinations are generally either warm or cool.

A sunset is a good inspiration to work with oranges and reds, whereas green foliage could lead to a great design in cool colors.