Kool Aid Dying

I've not tried this dying method before but have been keen to do so for a while, though its quite an expensive undertaking in the UK as there aren't many stockists and the drink mix isn't cheap like it is in the US. I ordered a large number of packs for both mum and myself and we spent yesterday dying a ridiculous number of skeins of yarn. All except the thin brown skein in the top row are 100% alpaca and they were originally a natural colour. I got a huge 1 kilo cone of this from Colourmart last year with the intention of dying it for shawls and accessories knitting. The skinny brown skein (which doesn't look all that exciting in the photo) was originally a peach/yellow/pink/blue/purple variegated lace weight which had been left from another project.

In total, mum dyed 8 skeins and I dyed ten, including the lace.

It was the most fun I've had for ages and was very, very easy to do. Much less messy and fiddly than acid dying with Procion dyes which was my only previous experience of this kind of thing. We were both very pleased with the outcome and are planning more dying days. Its rather addictive and I used almost all my packets of Kool Aid. The drink mix actually went further than I had expected it to which was nice. I used 33 packs in total to dye all my ten skeins shown above and used a variety of methods to apply the dye.

We set the dye using the microwave method. The drink powder was mixed with a little water (we used an American quarter cup measure) for those skeins onto which the dye was painted. The semi-solid colours were achieved by soaking the yarn in a weaker mix with more water added. The yarns were placed in plastic icecream tubs once the painting was completed (or to soak if they were semi-solid) and a bit of extra water added to ensure the yarn didn't dry out and burn when cooked. The tub was covered with cling film then went into the microwave on medium high. We "cooked" the yarn in one minute intervals and took it out when the water it sat in was clear, or nearly so. We left our yarn to cool with the cling film removed before rinsing them and then hanging them to dry. No dye came out of any of the skeins when we rinsed them. This was quite a surprise as when you dye with Procion dyes, you are rinsing and washing, for what feels like forever to get the excess dye out.

Working from left to right top row:

Purple: Berry Blue and Grape mixed to make blue, which I didn't like much, so I overpainted with Grape to make a gorgeous dusty purple.

Red/blue/purple: Berry Blue and Ice Blue Lemonade mixed together and Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi. Too stripy when finished so I twisted it up into a skein which mixed the colours at the intersections and made the colours more interesting.

Brown/Green/purple - originally a peach/yellow/blue/purple/pink variegated laceweight, overdyed with Grape to give a brown/green/purple colourway.

Light Coral - Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi.

Dark Coral Red - Cherry

Red/brown on end right hand side - one Grape, one Cherry, one Black Cherry. Painted on in stripes then the skein was twisted up to make the colours merge more smoothly.

Lower row Left to Right:

Light Blue - Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade and Berry Blue mixed together and painted on leaving some bare patches to give a variegated look.

Dark Lime - Lemon Lime

Light Lime - Lemon Lime

Marina - Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, Berry Blue and Lemon-Lime. Separate colours painted on in stripes and not mixed up very much.

Mum made a fabulous turquoise skein with four Berry Blue packs in one dye bath, a semi-solid purple, several pink and red skeins of varying shades and a skein that was painted in stripes of blue and purple which came out really fabulous.

Mum did her striped yarns using a syringe designed to get medicine down dog's throats. I did my striping using an old 2 inch wide decorators paintbrush and we both found that these methods worked well for getting the dye to go all the way through the skein, though we did need to turn over the skeins to ensure the back was covered evenly.

I haven't had so much fun for ages. I can't wait to do it again and have started to wander around the house searching for things to dye.

I am also very impatiently waiting for the skeins to dry fully so I can re-skein them, since this will give a better idea of how the yarn will knit up and will also make the skeins look much prettier than they do currently.