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It’s time to share something I call the Magic Tie-Dye Spiral.

Why is it magic? Because the three colours used mix beautifully to create a full rainbow tie-dye spiral.

And when I realised this, after quite a few failed spirals where I mixed up six separate colours and then had lots of trouble trying to apply them all evenly without the centre turning into a muddy mess, it seemed like magic!

It’s an incredibly easy way to create a tie-dye spiral pattern – and it’s nearly impossible to make a serious mistake.

Watch how it works below.

The secret is to use pure, or base colours. In this case I’ve used the primary Procion colours – lemon yellow, fuschia, and turquoise.

Most dye colours are a mix of these base colours. When you use mixed colours they can split into separate colours (for example, most purple dyes will show pink) and don’t always mix predictably. You’re a lot more likely to get brownish, murky colours when overlapping mixed colours.

But pure colours are a lot like your printer ink – in the correct proportions they will mix to create nearly every colour on the spectrum.

You can see more examples of mixing primary dye colours in these Tie-Dye Onesies. The tie-dye spiral design is a great way to try it out. And if you’re new to tie-dyeing it means that you don’t need precision for great results – it’s pretty beginner-proof!

Magic Tie-Dye Spiral Instructions

OK, got your three primary dye colours all mixed up?

First, apply yellow to half of the spiral.

Then, apply pink to half of the spiral, overlapping 1/3 of the yellow.

Finally, apply blue to half of the spiral, overlapping 1/3 of the pink and 1/3 of the yellow.

As you can see you end up with 1/3 of the spiral in each of the primary colours, and 1/3 of each of the mixed colours.

So you get a full rainbow tie-dye spiral – yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and green – from only three colours.

See why I call it the magic tie-dye spiral?!

And the final result? A little messy in the middle (I’m still using too much brainpower on making sure the video side of things is all working!) but it still looks great.

And save this design on Pinterest so you can easily recreate it when you’re ready.

Thanks for watching! We’d love to hear if you decide to try it and DIY your own tie-dye spiral. Tag @dyediyhq on Instagram or Facebook and we’ll check it out.