Kool Aid to Dye for!

KAGlee

**This post comes with a warning: If you continue reading/viewing, you may wind up with a huge, ridiculous grin on your face such as I have in the above pic!

Why oh why did I not take a before photo of these hanks of wool?? Perhaps because I was eager to see them transformed from a pale, drab, tea-color to something infinitely more vibrant. Before my oldest daughter went back to college, we spent a lovely day dyeing 10 skeins of this dreary yarn which had been given to me by a friend. (That is quite a lovely gift, don’t you think??)

KoolAidBegin

We found an awesome tutorial for dyeing yarn on Knitty.com that called for, of all things, Kool Aid!! I had heard of dyeing yarns with Kool Aid and had always wondered if it really worked, so here was my chance to give it a try.

KAZapped

It turned out to be quite simple! Once we had purchased all the Kool Aid packets we needed in the colors we wanted to try, we began the process of dunking the hanks in plastic containers filled with water and the desired Kool Aid, microwaving them in 2 minute increments until the water appeared clear (which meant that all the dye had been absorbed by the yarn), then rinsing them, and hanging them to dry!

KAHungtoDry

I fell in love with the reds and Catherine fell in love with the blues. We both loved them all!

KAPrettyColors

The colors we chose were: Mixed Berry, Orange, Lemon-Lime, Cherry, Black Cherry, Blue Raspberry Lemonade, Tropical Punch, and Pink Lemonade (combined with the Black Cherry because we couldn’t find enough of the Black Cherry).

KADeliciousColor

I really liked how the previously dyed tea color actually gave depth to the candy colors of the Kool Aid!

We set them out on our back deck to dry, but due to threatening rain had to bring them inside to dry hanging on a shower rod in one of our bathrooms.

KAIntheRocks

Amazingly, the kool aid is extremely color-fast, meaning that very little to NO color would rinse out of the yarns!! That makes me feel comfortable that once we knit it into something to wear, we won’t drip with colors if we get caught in the rain! Ha!

KAPebbles

When the hanks dried we had a lovely little photo shoot in our back yard, hanging them on trees, winding them back into their happy little hanks and nestling them amongst rocks and flowers. Silly stuff this! But oh so fun!

KAHangingYarn

If only rich-colored yarns grew on trees… 🙂

GrowsonTrees

Now we just have to decide what we want to knit these lovely colors into. Shawl? Scarves? Sweater? Vest? Hats? I’d like to try a little Fair Isle to use all the colors together…

They really are so happy aren’t they?

Here’s wishing you a happy day! (How’s that grin on your face??:)

4 thoughts on “Kool Aid to Dye for!

  1. The Twisted Yarn says:

    Wow! These colours are stunning. And I love that there’s a little bit of variegation. I wonder whether Kool-Aid is available in the UK…. might have to investigate so that I can shamelessly copy your efforts.

  2. freebirdsings/Timaree says:

    Fair Isle definitely! I love your colorful yarns. It makes me think of Philosopher’s Wool up in Canada. They offer their non-chemical washed yarns for dying with kool-aid at least they did when I bought their book back in 2000! Can’t wait to see what you do with it.

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