Kool-Aid Dyeing

I got my special yarn in the mail yesterday for my Kool-Aid dyeing project.  Couldn't wait to try it out and bought Kool-Aid today.  Diana Sullivan has a video on her "Diana natters on..." blog describing the whole technique and I followed it to the letter.

OK maybe I did one or two tiny things different from the video.  In the below picture I wetted the yarn in the warm water I filled my spaghetti pot with.  I wanted to make sure I wetted it through.  Once soaked I put the yarn in my colander while I heated the water to nearly boiling.

Since Diana's pot wasn't at a rolling boil I turned the heat down to simmer once it was about to boil.  I added 4 packages of Berry Kool-Aid and stirred.  What a beautiful color.

I ran the wet yarn under warm water again to make sure it was warm as Diana warned that cool yarn might be shocked into felting.  I didn't want this to happened.  Hand squeezed out excess moisture and added it to the pot of unsweetened hot Kool-Aid.

As I stirred the yarn around I got worried it wasn't working.  I was talking out loud about it.  My son in the background working on homework says, "Mom it's only been one minute."  It did feel like 10 to me since I was trying a new craft.  He was right I kept stirring. 

Saying out loud, "I don't think it's going to soak up all the dye in my batch."  In the back ground I hear my son say, "Mom it's only been 2 minutes."  Felt like 20 to me.  He was right.  I kept stirring.

Wow it really did soak up all the dye, but my water never did turn white as in Diana's video.  I'm at the 3 minute mark now.  I was amazed at how quickly it all went despite my fears of messing it all up.

I just couldn't believe the water went from a royal blue to clear!

After letting the water and yarn cool until I could comfortably pick it up I drained the pot in my kitchen sink.  I thought for sure the water on my white sink would have a faint blue color.  Nope.  Completely clear.

I got a rag towel out and jelly rolled the yarn up in it squeezing out as much water as I could.

I undid the ties that Diana had us do to give the yarn a tye dye look.  Since I really like variegated yarn I wanted to tye dye it to see what would happen when all knitted up.

I really enjoyed seeing how the yarn resisted the dye under the ties.  Yarn is hanging to dry.  Will check on it in the morning.  I can't hardly wait to make something with my newly dyed yarn!

Diana said her kitchen smelled fruity after she was done.   Maybe my kitchen is too open to trap the scents.  So, I decided to smell my yarn for a beautiful fruity scent.  My yarn smelled like a fruity wet dog.

It's tomorrow and couldn't wait to see how my yarn dried.  I touched my dyed yarn and it felt like it was just as wet as it was last night.  Maybe it's the rainy weather we've had for 9 days.  I bet there is a lot of water in the air.  So, I stuck it in my dryer on the delicate drying bed.  Set dryer for air dry.