So this weekend I have spent most of it playing with Kool-Aid and dying my own yarn. As an avid fan of instagram I have followed a few people who have tried their hands at dying with Kool-Aid and I decided that I would like to give it a try. I love hand dyed yarn and the fact that no two skeins are the same. It also looked like so much fun. So on saturday morning I grabbed my Kool-Aid and yarn and got started.

 

I spent a lot of time looking on the internet and reading books about dying before I started and settled on a blog that seemed to be the best one (knitty.com). I decided that I would do a solid colour first before dying a two tone hank. I washed the wool before I dyed it with some wool specific washing liquid and rinsed it off and let it soak in a bowl of water while I made up the Kool-Aid. I didn't need to use white vinegar in the soak as Kool-Aid is so acidic. 

I picked the grape Kool-Aid first as I really like purple! I used four sachets for a 100g DK hank. I mixed the Kool-Aid with about 200ml of water. I then poured this over the wool  which was now in  a waterless pyrex bowl and let it get absorbed into the wool. I added more water to ensure that the wool was covered completely with water and the Kool-Aid mix, placed a plate over it and placed it in the microwave. 

I zapped it for two minutes and took it out to check on it. I let it stand for a minute or so and then put it back in and zapped for another two minutes. I repeated this process until the water around the wool was clear. I think I did roughly 8 minutes worth of zapping. Once the water was clear I let it drain of the water and left it to cool down so I could rinse it again and double check the colour wasn't running.

 

When I placed it in the bowl I was a bit concerned about the colour as it had gone so pale compared to when it was in the water. But I was so excited to see what it was going to turn out like! 

 

 

Once it was rinsed I then took it outside to hang up and dry out. It looked so good and I was so happy with how it had turned out that I couldn't wait to get started on the next lot and choose some other colours!

 

 

I decided that I wanted to do two colours this time… I'd read how to hand paint two colours in a book so followed these instructions this time. I chose two Kool-Aid colours that had the food colouring in them so the yellow and green have one of the same food colours which meant that they would most likely blend quite well. 

 

I dyed each half in two separate bowl this time, using two packets of each colour. I poured in about 200ml of water for each colour mix into the jugs and then poured the colours over each half gradually letting the colours get closer to each other so that they would blend. This time rather than soaking it in water while it was in the microwave I drained most of the excess water off then placed it very carefully into the bowl as best as i could so that the colours didn't touch each other. I then zapped for two and a half minutes, let it cool for a few minutes and zapped for another two and half minutes then checked the water that was draining off the wool and repeated until it ran clear. I then rinsed, washed and hung out to dry. The one below is dyed with 'lemon and lime' and 'lemonade'.

 

 

I then spent the rest of the afternoon and this morning experimenting some more with the colours. Here are the results!!

 

 

This one was dyed using 'cherry' and 'ice blue raspberry lemonade'

 

 

This one was dyed using 'grape' and 'cherry'

 

 

This one was dyed using 'orange' and 'tropical punch'.

I have to say that I have really enjoyed dying these and I am planning on doing many many more. I am also planning on selling them and will update you once they are listed. I would love to see any results that you have if you choose to go on this adventure as well!