Comb a Rainbow of Colorful Wool

Editor's note: In honor of the official beginning of spring—you know, April showers bring May flowers and all that—we‘ve decided to recognize National Find a Rainbow Day in the United States (yes, that‘s really a thing!). Since rainbows are one of the most beautiful weather phenomena, with vibrant colors that inspire everything from stripey socks to layered unicorn cakes to rainbow twinkle lights adorning the bedrooms of many tweens, we‘ve decided to introduce you to a method of creating a rainbow of hues using hand combs and commercially dyed fiber.

Ever go to a fiber festival or a fiber store and feel absolutely beguiled by the colorful braids of hand-dyed top? What if I told you that you could create those luscious hues yourself, without touching a dye pot? Color Blending for Spinners by fiber artist Esther Rodgers is a great way to learn how to create an entire rainbow with a pair of hand combs and just three colors of commercially dyed wool top.

It‘s possible to create a full color wheel using just three colors of commercially dyed wool top.

All colors derive from the three primary hues: red, yellow, and blue. Blending red and yellow gives you orange; combining red and blue creates purple; and so on. It’s a lesson we all learned in elementary school with a box of crayons. BUT. The beauty of using hand combs to manually blend fibers is that you will never have a completely blended mix, and it is that slight irregularity that gives richness and depth to your colors.

Throw some shade on your fiber.

Things get really fun when you start blending black and white into your mix. (Okay, that’s technically more than three hues, but I’m the sort of person who doesn’t consider salt and pepper “ingredients” when I cook.) Adding white lightens and brightens things into a tint, while adding black tones things down into a shade. Which is to say that hand-combing commercially dyed fiber gives you color options that can go well beyond some of the hand dyes you see.

Esther Rodgers discusses how to add depth, dimension, and interest to colors you blend yourself using a pair of hand combs and introduces the viewer to color concepts such as hue, value, saturation, tint, and shade.

Color Blending for Spinners is a fantastic streamable course you can watch at your own pace, anywhere, any time, on any device. Follow along with Esther Rodgers as she discusses the differences in commercially dyed top that is one tone vs. hand-dyed top that has far more depth, which adds interest to your fibers, and demonstrates how to expertly blend primary colors to create unique, vibrant colors for yourself.

Never stop learning!

Allison Korleski is a former video producer for Spin Off.

Originally published January 30, 2019; updated April 3, 2023.