I’ve always been curious about dyeing yarn, but I was intimidated by the safety precautions you need to take with dyes that aren’t food safe (although now that Kelley and Kerin have given us some pointers, I am feeling more confident). Then Nina pointed me towards the What a Kool Way to Dye group on Ravelry, and I couldn’t wait to give Kool Aid dyeing a try. My local grocery store didn’t have a huge variety of flavors, so I picked up two of everything they had.
I’m impatient, so I only soaked my sock blank for about 20 minutes in plain water, while I heated up the Kool Aid.
I wanted to see if there was a color difference between Tropical Punch and Cherry, so I boiled two separate pots of Kool Aid, and dipped each end in a different flavor.
Since I pre-soaked the blank, the reds slowly rose out each pot and met in the middle, where they faded to pink.
Three lessons learned:
1.I didn’t expect the yarn to exhaust the color as quickly or completely as it did. It sucked up all the red dye in just a couple minutes! When I rinsed my blank, the water was completely clear. This is all that was left of the dye in the water from the pot. I should have bought more red Kool Aid for blank #2.
2.You can get really bright colors with Kool Aid. I had no idea!! Check out this red!
3.Tropical Punch and Cherry are slightly different reds, Cherry is a tiny bit deeper. Tropical Punch is a tad more pink, but they’re really pretty close. We’ll have to see what they look like knit up.
Here’s a look at my finished sock blank, plus a sneak peek at blank #2. More about that one soon...
Jun 29, 2011 at 8:02 AM YouÂ?ve got it in one. CouldnÂ?t have put it bteter.
May 13, 2010 at 10:28 AM I can also vouch for the fact that the yarn tastes like cherries. I dyed some sock blanks in several different Kool-Aid flavors, and when I bite the yarns (I lost my scissors) or felt the yarns together, they definitely taste like fruit. It reminds me of some of Willy Wonka's wackier experiments - lickable wallpaper, for instance.
May 12, 2010 at 12:48 PM Thanks Susan! I'm really excited about them too. Vintagenut, I used a little bit of the yarn last night for embroidery. I sucked on the tip so I could thread it through the needle, and it did taste a little tart! It wasn't sweet though, Nina and Kate both warned me not to buy the kind of Kool Aid with the sugar already mixed in before I went to the store.
May 12, 2010 at 12:44 PM Wow, I've never really come across anything dyed in Kool-aid brand drink flavoring before. Because it waters down the color a little when you make it as a beverage, I just thought it came out in lighter shades, like pastels to medium tones. But that's a sweet shade of red. I wonder if your sock blank tastes like cherries too :)
May 12, 2010 at 12:04 PM I love how the blanks look and I'm super excited to see how they work up - I think they are going to be so pretty. and your yarn smells like cherries too? double bonus!