Been Dying To Dye

The other day I decided I HAD to dye some yarn ... with Kool-Aide. Before I showered, still in my jammies, I just had to play.  I started with some Heritage Merino Superwash (if I over-handled it would NOT felt).

The whole process is SO easy!

I googled and read several different internet versions of this but they were all pretty much the same - you MUST have animal fiber (wool, alpaca etc.), Kool-Aide (NO sugar added) and white vinegar (maybe, maybe not - I opted to use it)

Here's what I did ...

Glass baking (lasagna) pan - filled with water and 1/4 cup vinegar. Keeping the yarn skeined and trying not to tangle it up (only really important part). Soak for about 15 minutes.  The yarn wanted to float so I placed another cassarole dish and a mason jar on top on it. The water is lukewarm - not hot/not cold. Because I was using Superwash it's wasn't quite so imperative but you don't want to felt the yarn.

3 packs of Lemonade (yellow) in 2 cups of water. Into a pyrex casserole with one end of the yarn hanging out, place smaller dish on top to help sink the yarn and cover with Saran Wrap. Microwave for 2 minutes, let sit 2 minutes. Water was clear. Yarn was hot.

I dumped it into a colander and squeezed out the excess water - I did not wear gloves and it was a bit hot - be careful.

Forgot a photo of this part ... Mix up 2 packets of Cherry KA in 1 cup of water. Transfer 1/4 cup Cherry and add in 1 cup of water. Pull out the opposite yellow end, keep out the original non-dyed end. 2 mins and rest 2 mins

Another dump and rinse (remember - it's hot),

I put just one end back into the cherry to make it a little darker. Pull out more dyed and still keep out undyed. Using canning jar dunk a section and nuke 2, rest 2.

Sorry - I got so caught up in the Kool-Aide and the microwave and the hot hot hot yarn, I forgot to take more pictures.  But I finished with Iced Blue Raspberry on the white end that hadn't been dyed at all yet.  Mix up 1 Iced Blue Raspberry in 1 cup water and add the undyed end and a bit of the yellow - another 2 mins

Too red - added 2 more lemonade to some parts. Ended up using 6 Lemonade, 2 cherry (and did NOT exhaust) and 1 Iced Blue.

After a final rinse, making sure the water is running clearn. Squeezed out as much as water I as I could - do NOT wring and do NOT let it get tangled up. Roll it in a big beach towel and step on it to get even more water out.

Hang it from a plastic coat hanger on the back porch and it dried in a couple of hours.

OK - so here is rolled into a hank ... I call this colorway

 Clown Barf!

Rolled into a yarn cake (did you know that's what this is called?).  Suddenly, I'm thinking this isn't too bad.

 I've startedd the socks (of course no photo - sooo sorry) and it's coming out really fun. Photo later today - promise!

Next time - and yea, there will be a next time, I'll only use 1 cherry, it's VERY red. Oh - and I bought some orange and pink lemonade to try. My store sells this stuff 10 packs for $1.00 on sale!!