NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Sunday, July 7 (game #126)

Strands is beginning to find its stride now, four months after it launched and a couple of weeks after it left beta mode and gained full NYT Games status. Today's game is a fun one, and if you need hints for it you'll find some below.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #126) - hint #1 - today's theme

What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Not just black and white

NYT Strands today (game #126) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• TIRE

• PITH

• SCALP

• SLEET

• TRAP

• STALE

NYT Strands today (game #126) - hint #3 - spangram

What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Monochrome

NYT Strands today (game #126) - hint #4 - spangram position

What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

• First: right, 4th row

• Last: left, 5th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #126) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #126, are…

• SLATE

• CHARCOAL

• PLATINUM

• GRAPHITE

• STEEL

• FLINT

• SPANGRAM: GRAYSCALE

• My rating: Easy

• My score: Perfect

Once again it took me a little while to work out what the first answer was and confirm the theme of today's Strands puzzle, but once I had that the answers fell into place nicely.

It's actually a nice little brain-teaser, which I solved mainly by looking around my room and thinking 'What color would I describe that as? Maybe CHARCOAL? OK, let's try that' until I had all of them. Getting the spangram, GRAYSCALE, certainly helped, and overall this was on the easier side of things.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Saturday 6 July, game #125)

• GNOME

• PLANTER

• BIRDBATH

• WINDSOCK

• FLAMINGO

• SPANGRAM: LAWNORNAMENT

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now out of beta so is a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.