Kool Aid Dyeing

This spring was busier than I can remember. I travelled a lot and the boys' sports seemed to take up much more time than before. School is finally out for me and I have a week before the boys are set free. Perfect time to try something I've been wanting to do for a while. So I jumped on the Kool Aid Wagon.

The yarn is Knit Picks Bare Superwash Merino DK. The flavors are grape, black cherry, fruit punch and orange. I basically followed the Knitty instructions for Kool Aid dyeing. First a soaking bath for the yarn, then highly concentrated drink mix/water mixture applied to the hank using cheapo mustard and ketchup dispensers.

I'm pretty pleased with the results, but they aren't perfect. The grape wasn't as strong as the other colors and kinda looks washed out. Also, there are places in all the colors that didn't get saturated with dye. You can see the whitish spots here and there.



This picture shows how I wanted the whole hank to look:



And here's another close up of the colors. It's a little blurry, but the colors seem the truest in this one:


I think I'm going to reapply the dye tomorrow to saturate the weak spots. I am trying to decide whether I want to reapply each color as before, or over-dye the whole thing with pink lemonade. It's light enough that it wouldn't cover the other colors, and it's a hue that would blend will them all. I'll sleep on that one.

This was a great learning experience for me. I was surprised that the excess water that flowed from the hank was CLEAR. Then it occurred to me that the yarn absorbs the dye like a magnet. I know that sounds obvious, but my water was crystal clear.

There are lots of better blogs out there about this process. Sorry I'm giving such an abbreviated account, but I've got all kinds of things going on right now, and I'm trying to catch up. I just wanted to show you what I've done. I've got other posts for the near future. A recent trip to Boston, a meeting of a bunch of MS Ravelers, several FO's and WIP's. I hope you'll come back and check things out soon. I will try not to let so much time pass before I write again.