There is a certain romance to the names of colours. I was recently given some old cottons. My Aunt quite correctly thought they would be my colours. She was right. They matched the capes I had been making, perfectly. I put them in a bowl to admire and left them there.

After a week or so, I started to notice that some of the cottons had names. Quite fantastic names at that. The three blues that looked almost the same, were not. While 962, 671 and 252 could easily be confused, give them a name and Cambridge looks nothing like Monaco.

There is something almost dull about colours with just numbers. While DMC 666 is devilishly red, it is hard to think of a particular colour for every three digit number. I would love to think of names for every cotton in the drawer and spend my days stitching away with ambiguous colours like avocado. Wondering, would that be the green of the inside, dark greenish black of the outside or wooden brown of the stone? Whatever the case, I don't think anyone can get it as wrong and this stocking repair thread:

Hmm, potato, the most alluring colour of hosiery never to be invented.