Koolaid Time

Earlier this summer I messed around with koolaid dyeing and food coloring too. There are lots of great resources on line for using koolaid to dye wool.

http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter07/FEATfoodcolordye.html
http://www.memphisfiberarts.org/spin/instructions/colorchart.htm
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/FEATdyedwool.html

Just get your google on and you can find lots more. The benefit of koolaid is you don't need to add vinegar because there is citric acid in the drink mix. I add a good glug anyway just to make sure. If you don't like the small of vinegar get some citric acid crystals as that works too. You don't need separate pots and pans since koolaid is basically a food grade dye. The most important thing is to have fun and not stress it's only yarn.

Here are some of my results from messing around this summer.


1 skein of Knit Picks fingering merino

• 8 cups water with 2T citric acid for dye bath
• Dye amounts: Started with 6 packets of grape and black cherry to 1 cup give or take of water
• Soaked yarn then added to 8cup water and citric acid let come up to about 120 deg F
  Then added the dye to section of the yarn. Let soak up
• Decided it was not dark enough then added 4 packs of Black cherry and 2 packs of grape to the entire bath swished it around.
• Temp to come up to 180 deg F for 30 minutes then let cool and rinsed
  

Then I made a lovely Bruges Scarf with it.




More Red yarn:

Dye Notes:

• Soaked yarn then added to crockpot when the temp was 120 deg F I added dye in sections.
• Water bath with 2T citric acid 6 cup water give or take
• 9 cherry and 9 ice blue lemonade dye into 1.5 cup water for each color
• heat til 180 deg F for 30 minutes
• let cool for short bit then rinse and hang dry

Next up a pretty Blue Green:

• 6 plus cups water glug of vinegar
• water bath up to 120 deg F or so
• 9 yellow lemonade, 9 ice blue lemonade in 1.5 cups water each
• poured over yarn in sections
• add dye then heat to 180 deg F for about 30 minutes
• let cool for a bit rinse and hang to dry

I'm an impatient person by nature so I rinse my yarn as soon as I can. It's much better to wait overnight or until the dye bath has completely cooled before you remove the dyed yarn. The dye will set better and is especially important with reds that can take longer to bind with the fiber. In the future I will do my best to follow this advice myself.