winter knitting, dyeing and starting over

over the long weekend, I took some well deserved relaxing time to spin some fluff (a whole 2 ounces in one weekend!), knit a mitten and then rip it out, because only a small child could wear it (and I am not a small child nor have the hands of a small child), dye some yarn with kool aid.

The easiest of them all much to my surprise, as I write this was dyeing yarn with kool aid.

1.  buy kool aid ($3.00 worth, okay I got a little out of control picking colors)

2.  wrap 100% wool yarn into skeins (I did 4-1 ounce batches)

raw wool wound into skeins
 
3.  soak in water and vinegar, you don't really need the vinegar, but I wanted really deep clear colors

4.  I did the coloring in two ways and found this way to be easier and I could forget about it and come back later.  Also, the fiber absorbed all the color and didn't have any rinse out.
- place skein into a 4 cup measure cup
- measure 1 cup of water and add kool aid packets in desired colors, mix
- gently pour the kool aid over yarn in 4 cup measure and cover completely with liquid. *do not over saturate with water!
- I then added additional kool aid packets directly to the container so that areas were darker than others to give dimension
- put yarn into microwave and nuke for 1 minute, then 1 more minute
- let soak for the afternoon (2-3 hours) liquid should be clear
- rinse with a little soap in cool water and hang to dry


lemon lime as the water clears

this is the grape and strawberry

final product of dyeing clockwise from top strawberry and grape, raw wool no color,
lemon lime, grape, tropical punch black cherry cherry
One final note, I wrapped my skeins with spud and chloe fine yarn which is a superwash wool and silk blend and the colors on the ties were so rich and dark.  I had wanted this kind of saturation on the wool, but no avail.  I think I will want to try a couple skeins of superwash to get better results in the colors that I want.  Although first try, looks great and I'll be knitting some colorwork with these especially those mittens I'm reknitting.

Happy crafting!

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