Dyeing Yarn: Day II and the Finished Yarn!

I've finally gotten around to blogging about my finished yarn! It's divine, and I love the process. Next time I think I want to try hand-painting it, but I really liked the ice cube method.

After the ice cubes froze and I soaked my wool (smelly!) I laid the yarn in a Pyrex dish and arranged the cubes so there wouldn't be two reds right next to each other.

Domo helped.

Here they are in the dish:

Hearts and bunnies!

I only had to leave them out there for about an hour before they melted.

OoOoO pretty!

Then I had to cover it with plastic wrap and microwave it so the dye would set. The resulting steam made a funny bubble.

Then I rinsed it twice, once just in water and again using Eucalan, and let it dry. Then I made a Kool-Aid cake!

Yay! I love it! I like how there's still spots of white in there. I started knitting a cowl, but I think I'm going to make a hat instead. Here's what a few rows of it looks knit up:

 

And the details:

Name: Children's Colorbox

Method: Kool-Aid Popsicle Dyeing

Bare: Wool2Dye4 Tweed

Weight: Worsted

How much: 181 yards/100 gram skein

I'll definitely be doing Kool-Aid dyeing again. In fact, I splurged at the grocery store yesterday:

And by splurged I mean 15 packs for $3. I have some colorways in mind, and some will be sent to England, but I love how cheap Kool-Aid is, and it creates beautiful colors on yarn!

I can't wait to buy some more bare yarn and dye, dye, dye!

Dyeing Yarn: Day I

A few Fridays ago I mentioned my Try It/Dye It Kit from Wool2Dye4.com. In between migraines and earthquakes (more on that later) I was able to start!

I decided to take advantage of the Virginia summer's heat and humidity and follow the tutorial I found on Kool-Aid Popsicle dyeing. Fun, easy and solar powered, just the way I like it. Yesterday I decided I would make my ice cubes. Turned out into a bigger event than I thought it would be, because things for me are hardly ever easy. 

All supplies ready! I didn't have any plain square old-fashioned ice cube trays, and had to use hearts, Santas, bunnies, and long thin rectangles that fit in water bottles. 

Yay primary colors! Except for green. Stupid green. 

I need things to be really precise so I mixed 1/2 cup of water with one packet of Kool Aid. From top to bottom: Cherry (red); Berry Blue (blue); Lemon Lime (green); Mango (yellow). And then I had to pour them into the cute little cubes. 

Now I really thought I'd end up with perfect little multi-colored hearts and Santa Clauses to put on my yarn, but I apparently don't have a steady hand, and am a complete failure at pouring liquid into ice cube trays.

Exhibit A.

Kool-Aid also stains, so I had to watch out for our white kitchen counter, and threw a cookie sheet under there. Thank goodness for stainless steel, or whatever it was, because the Kool-Aid liquid mixture didn't stain it. (It ended up mixing all together, and making ucky brown.)

I ended up doing another round of Kool-Aid packets, and then didn't gauge the room in the freezer properly, so I have about 3/4 cup of blue and green Kool-Aid and water sitting on my counter, waiting to be turned into bunny cubes. 

Here they are, sitting in the freezer, looking nice and pretty, not like the little evil demons they were to create.

Hopefully before the hurricane hits us tomorrow, I'll be able to throw them outside and let them do their thing. If not, I have to wait until Monday. 

I also learned a lot while doing this. Such as...

• Kool-Aid smells disgusting. The mango mix smelled good, but the cherry was overpowering, and I don't even know what the berry blue and lemon lime smelled like. Then they all mixed together, and it was this sweet, fruity nasty smell, like fruit had been rotting in my kitchen.
• Kool-Aid stains. This was a given, as my kit and Maiya Knits said "make sure to wear your gloves!" I'll make sure to wear gloves then I throw the cubes on the yarn, but when I was a kid and made this stuff, I don't ever remember it staining my hands or clothes.
• Which brings me to another point, I drank this stuff. What American kid doesn't like Kool-Aid? But it dyes yarn, what the heck did it do to my insides? Sure, coffee, tea, berries all stain and we eat those, but those are natural, and since this is some weird powder, it just creeps me out. Like, if it turned out Tang was actually ground up asbestos.
• My children will never drink Kool-Aid. 
• Square cubes would have been much easier, for pouring purposes especially. It was a lot easier for me to pour into the long rectangles than trying to get the bunnies and hearts filled nicely and without spilling.
• Make sure to measure the freezer next time, so I don't have a glass of Kool-Aid sitting on the kitchen counter.
• Thank goodness for water's concave meniscus. The what? It's is the curve in the upper surface of a standing body of liquid to the surface of the container or another object, and water has a concave meniscus which occurs when the molecules of the liquid attract those of the container's, causing the surface of the liquid to cave downwards. (via) If it wasn't for that, when I carried the trays of cubes to the freezer, Kool-Aid would have been everywhere. I could even see the little 'bubble' or curve and was just thrilled the water didn't spill over.
• Do dark colors first! A little yellow in your blue won't make green, but a little blue in your yellow will. (Which is why it looks like I have all green bunnies.)
• Paper towels are the best invention ever.

All in all, it was fun, and probably would do it again. I just can't wait until I get to start working with the yarn!

And once we survive the hurricane, I'll update everyone on the Virginia Earthquake. (Yeah, we felt it!)

Favorite Things Friday: Dyeing Yarn!

Please bear with me. I'm completely out of it. I'm on a cocktail of Butalbital and Prednisone to cure a migraine and I feel completely stoned out of my mind. I've slept all. day, and I'm not even exaggerating. But, as a dedicated blogger, and because I'm so excited about my wool dyeing kit I felt it was necessary to yammer about my dye kit. So if this post seems rant-y, or doesn't make sense you know why. I apologize.

I just bought a knitting magazine, and you know those few pages of advertisements they have before the patterns? There was a "how to dye yarn with Kool-Aid" kit from Wool2Dye4.com. It was only $20, and since I've always wanted to dye yarn and it will fulfill a requirement for my 101 in 1,001 I decided "what the heck" and bought it. It arrived today!! In the one hour I was awake I was able to open it and was all excited. 

(Domo not included.)

I decided to get the Try-It/Dye-It Neckwarmer Kit so along with all the items necessary for dyeing (heh) it also came with a neckwarmer pattern. It came with spoons, gloves, two sample packets of Eucalan wool wash, directions, yarn...basically everything. What a great idea! I got four packs of Kool-Aid: Mango (which I'm guessing will be yellow?), Berry Blue, Cherry, and Lemon-Lime. I can also refer to THIS for what colors, but I'm not too sure about how it will come out because I'm not dyeing playsilks, and I don't really care which color it turns out to be as it's my first time!

As soon as I recover, hopefully next week, I'm going to dye yarn, and of course photograph every step. I found a tutorial on Kool Aid Popsicle Dyeing and I think I'm going to do that method rather than using the oven or microwave. (I heard if you use grape flavored Kool Aid in the microwave then your kitchen will smell like grapes for a few days!) I really like the idea of it being solar powered, adore the colors she came out with, and will be able to use the Washington DC heat and humidity to my advantage. (An hour? Pff, mine will melt and set in about 15 minutes.) 

I'm really excited and wish I could try now, only it's night and hasn't been sunny outside, and I can barely walk from the bed to the bathroom. Curses migraine medicines!! 

Stay tuned for Kool-Aid dyed yarn goodness!