Yarn may be used undyed, or may be coloured with natural or artificial dyes. Most yarns have a single uniform hue, but there is also a wide selection of variegated yarns:
- Heathered or tweed: yarn with flecks of different coloured fiber
- Ombre: variegated yarn with light and dark shades of a single hue
- Multicolored: variegated yarn with two or more distinct hues (a "parrot colourway" might have green, yellow and red)
- Self-striping: yarn dyed with lengths of color that will automatically create stripes in a knitted or crocheted object
- Marled: yarn made from strands of different-colored yarn twisted together, sometimes in closely related hues
