theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Yes.  I am a new indie dyer of beautiful yarns.  Okay.  In the interest of full disclosure, I am the dyer of one skein of yarn!! 🙂

Last night the Minnesota Knitters Guild hosted their November meeting and we all got to dabble in dying yarn with Kool-Aid!  The meeting was a blast and extremely well organized!!

I started with a skein of KnitPicks Bare Palette (Peruvian Wool 440 yds, 100 grams, $5.99) that has been in my stash for years.  Pure animal fibers work best, I guess.

Soak the yarn thoroughly for at least 20-30 minutes.  Most of us brought in wet yarn.  Take a bowl of water (enough to cover the yarn) and add 1 package of Kool Aid for every ounce of yarn.  I used 4 packages of Watermelon (apparently I was inspired by the watermelon colored shirt I was wearing!).  My friend Kim dyed hers an intense Kelly green.

Add the yarn and swish the yarn gently in the Kool Aid water.  Make sure the water covers the yarn completely.  Microwave it 4-8 minutes, checking after 4 minutes.  The water should be clear, and mine was!  Rinse gently in very hot water to avoid felting the yarn.  Other people used very concentrated colors to paint their yarn.  That process is slightly different and since I didn’t do mine that way I didn’t pay very close attention.

My yarn is a gorgeous color, though there are some white areas.  I am going to over dye with additional watermelon Kool Aid to color the white.  I am more than fine with some tonality in the final product!  I think I will knit a lacy scarf with my beautiful yarn.  I am so pleased with how it turned out and will definitely try this again!!  Thanks, MKG!!!

PS: I did over dye my yarn  with more Kool-Aid, but did not find powder at the store I was at, so I bought the liquid.  I squirted the whole bottle into a bowl of water and repeated the process described above, making sure that the white areas were exposed to the color.  The white is gone and I don’t think the color changed much overall!