Dyeing
Wisdom of the Kool-Aid Man
James’ littlest sister Kate and I decided to try Kool-Aiding some yarn recently and I must say, our endeavor was a success. After spending way too much time running around to the Goodwill for glasses, the grocery store for Kool-Aid, to the Dollar Tree for rubber gloves (which we didn’t use) and blah blah blah, we finally got started with filling up the glasses with magical, powdery, sugar-free flavor packets.
After soaking our yarn in water and getting our cups set up with flavor labels and hot water we were ready to dye away. We tried dipping and pouring, mushing and mashing, even cleaning up a dye spill with a clean hank of yarn.
Ten times more fun than it was messy, we turned out some really cool yarns! James said he might like a pair of socks out of the crazy rainbow yarn and I’ve already made slippers from the ball we dunked into the purple and orange. An extra bonus: makes your feet smell like candy! Whodda thunk it?
Conclusion: SUPER FUN AND COOL!!! Next step: big girl acid dyes in a crock pot!
Yarn to dye for.
Soak, dye, set, dry. That’s what I’m looking forward to this week.
James and I placed our order for acid dyes this weekend and we’re very excited to try dying yarns and wools. I for one am excited to experiment with colors and patterns (for the wool especially) but I think James might be more interested in just making a red and black mess. Either way I think it’ll be super fun. So we’re getting Jacquard acid dyes and we’re starting off with Scarlet, Yellow Sun, Emerald, Sapphire Blue, Silver Grey and Jet Black. I think we have the makings for success on the way. The only problem is I don’t know if I can wait another week! I mean really, a whole 6 days?? At least I have my knitting until then.
I’ve got my trusty dye manual here, too. I suppose we can just read it and oogle over pictures until the dye arrives. Anyone wanting to learn to dye (not that I can say I’m any level of authority at this point) should think about getting/borrowing/checking out at the library the book Hand Dyeing Yarn & Fleece by Gail Callahan. It’s seriously the greatest. So many wonderful pictures makes it really easy for people like me (with no attention span when it comes to actually having to read directions) to know what you’re doing or what you should be thinking about doing next. I really can’t wait.
dinomeg 