Don't Drink the Kool Aid

For some reason, I kept putting this off. I thought it was going to get really messy and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to deal with it. But one weekend afternoon, I got out the supplies and my daughter and I played around with Kool Aid and yarn.

I used some natural Wool of the Andes yarn from Knit Picks and divided one skein into 4 using my swift and niddy noddy. We used instructions from this site and I decided to try both the stove top and the microwave methods. First we need to soak the fiber in hot water.

And we mix up our potions - Kool Aid, water and vinegar.

First we tried the microwave process - the fiber is supposed to be placed in plastic wrap, then the dye is poured over it, the fiber is wrapped in the plastic wrap and you squish the stuff around to saturate the fibers with the dye. Then this is microwaved for 2 minutes or so. Squish the liquid around some more and you can microwave again if necessary.

I had thought the stove top method would be messier plus the directions said that the mixture would have to simmer for about 45 minutes. It actually took maybe less than 10 minutes and I was really amazed at how the liquid turns a milky white when the dye bath is exhausted.

The colors we tried in the microwave were Berry Blue, Watermelon Cherry and then Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade. This last one looked like the Watermelon Cherry so we tried sprinkling some Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade over it. This didn't turn out so great so we ended up putting it on the stove with 2 packages of Orange. On the stove, we soaked one skein in 2 packages of orange, a second in a mixture of Arctic Green, Lemon Ice, Lemonade with a little Ice Blue Raspberry sprinkled in and a third skein was soaked in Grape. This last one turned out way too dark so we added 2 packages of Cherry.



I wish there was some way to show you how great it smelled in the kitchen. Here from left to right we have Orange, Watermelon Cherry, Arctic Green with Lemon Ice and Lemonade, Berry Blue, Grape with 2 Cherry added after, Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade with Ice Blue Raspberry and then overdyed with Orange.

In honor of this post and so someone else can experience this process first hand, the next prize from the blogiversary celebration will be a skein of Knit Picks natural (sock weight) with a variety of Kool Aid colors. I'll be picking the winner in the next few days.