Have you ever dyed your yarn – on purpose? There are many techniques and schools of thought when it comes to dying yarn, and many people take it very seriously. But if you are just looking to have a little fun, and don’t want to mess around with chemicals that require major safety equipment, then I have just the thing for you.
Koolaid.
Yup, that drink mix that you can pick up for pennies a packet is awesome at dying animal fibre (means it works on hair, too). Here was a fun dying experiment a couple of days ago:
1. Presoaking the yarn (Scheepjes sock yarn in an oatmeal colour). The yarn is skeined and tied in three places.
2. I mixed the koolaid with just enough water to get a good, dark mix (I used strawberry-kiwi, strawberry and cherry).
3. I poured the dye over the yarn, which was coiled on a plastic bag on top of newspaper.
4. Once the yarn was saturated I put it in a glass dish with a lid and microwaved it in 2 minute increments, letting it rest between bouts (I did this batch three times).
5. I let the yarn cool for about an hour and then rinsed it out in luke-warm water (the water had no dye coming off, although the strawberry-kiwi left a milky residue which rinsed out).
6. I hung the yarn outside to dry.
7. I pulled out my lovely ball winder and voila!
The only thing you have to be careful of is cleaning up any spills as the colouring may dye your counters, etc. I wore gloves as I didn’t really want red fingers, but it won’t hurt you at all.
It’s really addictive, and a lot of fun. I already have more colours planned!
Love, Love, Love! Kate this is great this is also something that I have tried just the once and was happy with the results but will try again using your technique ;-) Now all I need to do is pick up some yarn to dye as I still have some koolaid kicking around from the first try at it.
This will be a good summery activity to do with the boy.
By: Rona on July 2, 2009
at 3:11 pm
Wow. It looks fantastic. I wonder if it would work for tie-dye on a 100% cotton shirt. The kids and I may have to try that later in the summer.
By: Liz on July 7, 2009
at 9:02 am