Make Your Own Rainbows: A Beginner’s Guide to Dye Colour Mixing

Learning to mix your own colours opens up a whole new world of colour possibilities. Not only is it a great way to develop your eye for colour, but it also gives you the freedom to create unique colours that suit your personal style or specific project needs.

Whether you're trying to match a colour or just chasing the perfect hue, mixing your own can be both practical and cost-effective, especially if you're starting out with a limited budget or working with a smaller dye range. And best of all? It’s genuinely fun and rewarding to experiment and discover what you can create!

One of the main reasons we have customers mixing their own colours is either to match a colour or if a business wants to start making their own unique colours or colour ways, for example if your are selling dyed yarn, fibre, fabric and you want to have signature colours that can be remade with your own formula.

LET'S TALK COLOUR THEORY

We’re starting with the absolute basics—and yes, it might bring back memories of school art class! But don’t worry, we’re not here to overwhelm you. Our goal is to help you get more out of the dyes you already have and give you the confidence to start mixing your own colours.

Let’s get the colour models out of the way so we can move on. There are three basic colour models we use:

RYB - Red, Yellow, Blue - Generally used for art, painting and design

RGB - Red, Green, Blue - Used for digital outputs as screens are made up of RGB light combinations

CMY or CMYK - Used for design and print end products. This is the colour system used in your printer, but the K stands for black.

https://www.color-meanings.com/different-color-models-ryb-rgb-cmyk/

 

Because dyes are transparent, you’ll get the brightest, most vibrant results when using the CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) primary colours. The traditional RYB (Red, Yellow, Blue) model, which many of us learned in school, tends to produce earthier, more muted tones—more like what you’d expect from mixing paints.

HOMOGENEOUS COLOURS VS MIXTURE COLOURS

Before you can start mixing colours yourself, we need to touch on homogeneous colours. In the dyeing world, a homogeneous colour is made up of a single dye molecule—these are pure colours, straight from the manufacturer.

Unlike what we learned from traditional colour wheel mixing, when it comes to dyes and pigments, you’re not limited to just three primary colours. There are usually several homogeneous colours you can mix with.

A mixture shade, on the other hand, is made by blending two or more homogeneous colours to create a new one. Most dye ranges include a mix of both. This is because there are only so many dye molecules that have been discovered!

Most dye ranges begin with a base set of homogeneous colours and expand over time by adding popular mixture shades to offer a wider palette. This is also why mixture shades are often used for ice dyeing—because the dye ‘splits’ into the component colours it’s made from, rather than behaving like a single solid colour in a regular dye bath.

HOW TO: COLOUR WHEEL MIXING EXERCISE FOR DYES

Today we’re using Landscape Dyes for Cotton to show you how to build a colour range—starting with just three primaries to create a 13-colour wheel. Since it’s one of the smaller colour ranges in our product lineup, it’s the perfect example of how colour mixing can help you expand your options with this dye.

We chose CMY primaries of Turquoise, Magenta and Sun Yellow. This type of mixing is a great introduction and will give you a palette to work from when creating your own mixes in the future.

We wound mini skeins of 15g of 8ply Cotton in the colour 'Snow' from Bendigo Woollen Mills.

Following the instructions for dyeing with Landscapes Cottons, we need dye at 10% WOF (weight of fibre) for each one, which 1.5g per skein. 

Once you know how much dye you need, a simple way to create a mixing formula is by using percentages.

For our colour wheel, we’re starting with our three selected homogeneous primaries, using 1.5g of dye per skein for each primary colour. **If you want to know how we accuratly get this measurement, we share our method below. 

Above: starting from the top and going clockwise: 100% Turquoise, 100% Sun Yellow and 100% Magenta. 

Next, we’re going to mix the secondary colours by combining equal amounts of the two adjacent primaries. For each mix, we’ll measure out half of the total dye amount (1.5g)—so 0.75g of each colour. Then, just follow our usual dyeing instructions to apply the dye to your skeins.

Above: starting from the top and going clockwise:
100% Turquoise
50% Turquoise and 50% Sun Yellow
100% Sun Yellow
50% Sun Yellow and 50% Magenta
100% Magenta
50% Magenta and 50% Turquoise. 

For a third level of mixing, we’re going to create in-between skeins by blending our primaries in 25%/75% ratios. This means taking half of a 50/50 secondary mix and combining it with half of the solid primary next to it. By doing this for each adjacent pair, we’ll end up with twelve colours spaced evenly around the colour wheel.

Above: starting from the top and going clockwise:
100% Turquoise
75% Turquoise and 25% Sun Yellow
50% Turquoise and 75% Sun Yellow 
100% Sun Yellow
75% Sun Yellow and 25% Magenta
100% Magenta
75% Magenta and 25% Turquoise
50% Magenta and 50% Turquoise

Above: starting from the top and going clockwise:
100% Turquoise
50% Turquoise and 50% Sun Yellow
25% Turquoise and 75% Sun Yellow
100% Sun Yellow
50% Sun Yellow and 50% Magenta
100% Magenta
50% Magenta and 50% Turquoise
25% Magenta and 75% Turquoise

More muted and complex colours are often mixtures of all three primaries in different amounts. For fun, let’s see what happens if we mix equal amounts of all three of our primaries (0.5g of each to maintain the total of 1.5g). The result is a chocolate brown.

TA DA!!! A beautiful colour wheel that you can try yourself and even continue to create more shades. 

This is just one way to mix colours—there are many other possibilities! You could use this method with different primaries (like red, yellow, and blue), or choose alternative dye colours for cyan, magenta, and yellow. You could even add in a third colour like Landscape Cotton Lime Green, or reduce the dye amounts for more pastel shades. If you don’t have Landscape Cottons, not a problem, why not try this technique with Landscapes for Wool and Silk, Acid dyes, Procion dyes, screen printing pigments, or even paints? 

The more you experiment with mixing and percentages, the more you'll be surprised by the results. Over time, you’ll get a better feel for how things will turn out and become more confident in your colour mixing!

As you play around with colours and try out your own combinations, here are a few things we’ve picked up along the way...

Homogeneous dyes make the best mixing primaries: When mixing colours, we suggest using homogeneous shades to get crisp, clear results. You can use mixture shades, but they tend to make things more complex, especially when you're just starting out.

Colours can shift—and surprises happen: Dyes don’t always show their final colour in powder or solution form, and many will change during the drying process. Some shift dramatically! You can test as you go on a bit of spare yarn or fibre, but it’s best to wait until the fibre is fully dry before judging the final colour. Sometimes, one dye strikes faster or takes better than another, resulting in soft two-toned effects. Other times, one shade might overpower another— for example, you can see above that yellow was easily overtaken by turquoise or magenta. It’s all part of the fun!

Keep good records for repeatability: If you're aiming to recreate a colour, accurate measurement and record-keeping are essential. Use a quality scale, write down your formulas, and attach a dyed swatch—it’ll save you so much time and uncertainty later.

Have fun!: If you’re experimenting with colour, don’t be discouraged by unexpected outcomes. This simple exercise helps build your understanding of how dyes behave. Whether you're chasing precision or just playing with pigment, it's a great way to learn—and most importantly, enjoy the process.

 

 

How We Mix and Test Reproducible Colours at Kraftkolour

When we create or test new dye colours at Kraftkolour, we always aim for two things: minimal waste and maximum consistency. And importantly, we do all of our colour mixing using dry dye powders, not liquid solutions.

Why We Mix a Larger Batch of Powder

It is very hard to mix smaller quantities like we needed for this colour wheel and get repeatable results or an accurate colour representation. This method allows us to blend precise dye formulas that can be reproduced over and over again. It's especially useful when you're combining colours, as small errors in measurement can lead to big differences in the final shade.

For example, in our colour wheel experiment, we dyed 15g of yarn per sample. Since the Landscape Cotton Dyes are used at 10% Weight of Fibre (WOF), we only needed 1.5g of dye per colour.

But accurately measuring and evenly blending 1.5g of mixed dye powder is tricky, even with our sensitive warehouse scales. That’s why we always start by creating a larger batch of the dry dye mix, and then weigh out the amount needed for each sample from that.

The Kraftkolour Method (Example)

Here’s how we did it for this exercise:

• Each yarn sample weighed 15g

• Landscape Cottons need to be used at 10% WOF, that meant 1.5g of dye powder per sample of yarn

• Our colour blends mostly used simple ratios (25%, 50%, 75%), so we made up a 'bulk' 20g of each powder mix —which is an easy number to divide and work with

• We carefully weighed each dye into a small jar using our precision scale:

  E.g. 25% Yellow = 5g

          75% Cyan = 15g

   

• We then: 
  - Sealed the jar and shook it well
  - Let it rest for 5 minutes
  - Shook it again until the mix looked even

• Finally, we stirred it once more and measured 1.5g of the blended powder into our dye pot, then dyed as usual.

   

   

Why This Works for Us

Some dyers prefer to mix dye solutions and blend them in liquid form. That’s a valid method—but at Kraftkolour, we find that blending dry powder gives us more accuracy and control, especially for testing and repeatable results.

We usually make 50g batches, but 20g was perfect for this experiment. This method also means you:

• Get a consistent, well-blended formula
• Can easily repeat your results later
• Have a small reserve of the original mix if anything goes wrong

And one more advantage: powdered dyes have a much longer shelf life than dye solutions. While powder can last for years if stored properly, liquid dye solutions often expire after about 6 months (depending on the dye type). Keeping mixed powder on hand is a smart, long-term approach.

FURTHER LEARNING AND RESOURCES

We always recommend starting with your local guilds—they’re an incredible source of knowledge and community. Our local is the Handweavers and Spinners of Victoria, which has a fantastic member library and a wide range of informative (and fun!) classes.

Here are a few more resources we love:

• Dyeing to Spin by Felicia Lo ( Sweet Georgia) – A brilliant resource that covers the fundamentals of dyeing with spinners in mind.

• ChemKnits Blog & YouTube Channel – Created by a biochemist with a passion for dyeing and knitting. It's a goldmine of technical explanations, experiments, and tutorials.

And lastly, don’t forget to trust the knowledge you already have. There's no substitute for hands-on learning, so get experimenting and see where the colour takes you!

Happy mixing! Love KK