The Knitting Fiend

Standing in the Kool-aid aisle at Wallmart, it suddenly struck me: I must experiment and dye yarn with kool-aid.

I examined the colors: Strawberry, cherry, pink lemonade, fruit punch. So, I could dye things any color– as long as it was a shade of red. Then, I saw it: Neon Blue!

Big spender that I am, I tossed the $0.20 packet in my cart, and advanced to the cat food aisle. I filled the cart with cat food, and went home.

Now, I have to admit, this was not the first time I thought about experimenting with Kool-Aid dye. I had exchanged email with another knitter, who suggested I consult this web page for advice. Talk about a thorough explanation! The site describes two dyeing methods, and includes a color chart. Not only that, the color chart shows the brilliant colors you get if you dye white fiber and the heathery colors if you die grey fiber!

I printed out the page, and decided to follow the directions. Sort of. I couldn’t really follow the directions because I wanted to learn if I can dye an already knit item. If I can, I could buy white yarn, knit an item, and make the final color decision later. So, instead of dyeing yarn, I substituted a felted white swatch I had left over from making my hand knit felted purse .

I also didn’t want to lay the swatch on plastic wrap, pour the dye over it, then wrap everything up and squish boiling hot dye around with gloved hands. So, I just dumped the dye and the swatch in a pyrex bowl, put it in the microwave and simmered on 20% power for 20 minutes, stirring every now and them. By that time, the color in the water had been absorbed. I prepared my pork roast while letting the letting the contents of the bowl cool. I then rinsed the swatch, and washed it with dishwashing solution (as instructed.)

You can see the picture. The intense neon blue was absorbed by the wool. The yarn seems very color fast– nothing bled when I washed it with Dawn. No dye came off on that paper towel. Later on, I’ll throw this in the washing machine and see if the color fades.

There is one little hitch: the yarn took more dye in some spots and less in others, so the swatch is blotchy. I think this is because I couldn’t drop the entire swatch in instantly. One bit fell in just seconds before the other, and took extra dye. Now, if this were yarn, it wouldn’t be a big problem. The variations would sort of “knit out” instead of affecting a whole region.

So, I guess I’ll have to dye my yarn, and not already knitted items. Drat!

Still, I think this is going to expand my use of inexpensive Lion Brand Aran Wool for projects! It only comes in off-white, but now for $0.60 I can die the whole hank! Not bad.