Colour and the Paradox of Choice

If you’ve found your way here you’re most likely interested in doing more than making a nice crochet blanket.

Perhaps you’ve already done a course with me, or maybe you’re sitting on the fence trying to justify investing a significant amount of time and money in your next craft project.

Some decisions are particularly difficult to make, especially when if you don’t make a decision nothing bad is going to happen, it’s just that an accumulation of lots of unresolved micro decisions will simply result in inertia.

It’s easier to do nothing then work on persuading yourself this was the right decision.

Decisions are difficult enough to make when it’s a binary choice.

• Yes/No
• Do it/Don’t Do It
• Stay/Leave
• Commit/Don’t Commit

But if you introduce more options suddenly the decision multiplies in complexity.

• Is it this one, or that one, or these, or something I don’t even know exists yet!

OR

• I’ve chosen this, but because I’m not 100% sure it’s the right decision I’m going to engage in colour envy and keep my options open in case I want to change my mind at some point in the future thus perpetuating my anxiety and frustration.

This is The Paradox of Choice and it’s the cause of indecision, dissatisfaction and ultimately – regret.

The Paradox is that having more options creates the illusion of greater freedom and as a result; greater happiness. But the reality is more choice can lead to overwhelm, doubt and eventual abandonment of the task in hand.

Studies have shown that simplifying choices can increase satisfaction; more options rarely means a better experience.

I’ve noticed that I use food metaphors quite a lot, so here’s some food for thought:

A culinary example of this scenario is the COSMO restaurant which offers as much as you can eat of different world cuisines, all under one roof.

This may sound like the perfect solution to dinner out with young children, teenagers and other picky eaters but in my experience the initial excitement quickly wears off to become panicked decision paralysis (one carrot stick and a shellfish) or worse; your small child eats their way round the world with permission to perform nauseating displays of gluttony with predictable results later.

My projects are designed to help you develop both your practical skills and your design and decision making abilities, encouraging a disciplined and playful approach.

Often the decision people struggle with most in their craft work is ‘What colours should I use?’

I know colour is often what draws people to my work. As humans our lives are very much shaped by our scopic sense and colour plays such an important role in how we experience and engage with the world. We’re seduced by it, repelled by it and judged by it.

Colour triggers us, calms us, informs us and can be a visual code we only understand on a subliminal level.

If you’ve already got some good basic crochet skills you’ll have developed these over time as a result of doing several projects. You didn’t become proficient at crochet just by watching a video or looking at some pictures in a book, or on Pinterest – you did it by repetition, trial and error, practice and probably getting it wrong a lot of the time.

This is how anyone learns their craft. How good you are something; singing, running, painting, writing, playing an instrument, is a direct result of time invested in actually doing that thing – and the same is true with your design and colour skills. Nobody’s just born a good designer – you have to work at it. Put in the hours, get things wrong, get things right, make decisions and stay focused by giving yourself boundaries and limiting your options.

When you look at a beautiful piece of work; something that’s held together by the interactions and relationships of colours, it can appear effortless. As if the manual construction is the actual ‘work’ and the thought processes behind it, including the colour choices, are simply a supporting act or an unavoidable decision to be made before the actual INDUSTRY of making can happen.

My own approach to textile design is an inversion of this. For me colour is everything. Colour is the Meaning and Crochet is the Messenger.

For most of my projects I’ve developed a colour formula. I provide the framework for choosing a successful colour story and if you use this formula to select your colours you can rest assured that your work will be jaw-droppingly beautiful, and totally unique. No one does colour like YOU do!

But it’s not just about choosing a set of colours that sets your heart on fire. It’s about commitment, because surrendering yourself to your decision is a kind of liberation.

If you’ve done the research, worked through the colour exercises and carefully chosen a collection of colours that you love, you can stop fretting and simply get on with the joy of making without worrying that there’s a better option out there somewhere.

I know this through experience. I’ve honestly lost count of how many times I’ve undone and redone one of the designs I’m currently working on. Every time I think I’ve got it right, another option torments me.

Exploring alternative colour options in crochet is a painstakingly slow process which sometimes feels like bordering on insanity when it can take a whole week just to see how a different colour  looks in the mix.

But I’m learning to listen to my own advice. When every potential colour story is beautiful you just have to pick one, and stick with it.

Make it work, and make it work GLORIOUSLY! That’s the challenge.

When you  limit your colour options to , for example, just 6 or 8, exploring these and making them work together is infinitely more rewarding than trying to  work with a gazillion different colours because you simply can’t make a decision and narrow it down.

If you lack confidence choosing colours for your knitting or crochet I’d always advise working with a brand that designs their colour collection thoughtfully. As a crafter your yarn stash is your paintbox and you want to make sure there are lots of beautiful colours in it.

Unless you’re dyeing it yourself you really are limited to what the yarn manufacturers want you to use, so you’d better make sure you choose your brand carefully.

I have no affiliation to any yarn producers so I can be totally honest and upfront about my choices – and I genuinely love Rowan Felted Tweed. I think it’s an intelligent  collection for makers who get colour. It’s designed for crafters who are inquisitive and sensitive to colour’s subtle nuances.

The Felted Tweed colours are updated regularly so I recently made this video for our course members to guide them through the collection as it is in October 2025.

 

I hope you enjoy this peek behind the scenes. There are approximately 20 HOURS of video tutorials in the Tessellation Nation course; spanning design workshops, colour tutorials and crochet instructions broken down and delivered in forensic detail.

So if you’re feeling inspired and are ready to make a decision that will change your approach to craft you can hop aboard our next course which begins in January 2026.

Nip over here to find out more.