Kool-aid Dying is Easy; Living is Hard

I want to run around singing the praises of dying yarn with kool-aid.  It is so easy and so fun and you really can get these vivid, vivid amazing colors.  And the orange… Oh my god.. the orange.  I’ve never been what you might call a fan of orange, but the orange you get from Kool-aid… Wow.

You could do this with your kids, if you were looking to try dying your own yarn, but didn’t know where to start, and you had a bunch of kids lounging around your house screaming about how one of them never lets the other of them watch The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

It’s really like, not matter what you do, as long as you don’t aggitate the wool, you cannot fuck this up.

I made color washes almost like easter egg dye, with two packets of Kool-aid, a touch of vinager, and hot water, which I then spooned onto the yarn.  I poured some of that mixture onto the yarn.  I made big color baths and put the yarn into it.  I sprinkled packets of Kool-aid directly onto the yarn.  I just tried a little bit of everything and it all seemed cool.  The one bunch that wasn’t exactly good looking, I just added some yellow and orange to it and redyed it.

Then–and this is what makes it so damn cool–you just set the yarn in the microwave.  So, I had two ceramic dishes going at a time and I put one in for two minutes then the other in for two minutes (so the first one could rest) and then kept switching them out like that until the water in the dish was clear.

It usually took three turns in my microwave (but my microwave survived the flood of 93 in a fishing cabin so it’s got some issues, god love it), but other folks on the internet were saying it was usually taking them two turns.

So, it happens very quickly, the results are vivid and beautiful, and the smell is pleasant.

The only drawback is that I didn’t know where else to get wool yarn from other than the good yarn store in town, so I paid $6.50 a skein.  Compared to the $1.98 I usually pay at Wal-mart for their acrylic crap, it was steep.

But, it’s really beautiful yarn and feels great in my hands so I can’t really complain.  Just, if you actually plan out your projects, instead of just getting a compulsion and having to see it through right this second or you start to get sick to your stomache like me, I might shop around on the internet and see if you can’t find it for less.

Also, though I suppose it goes without saying, since it is me we’re talking about, I love this method precisely because the colors aren’t uniform and un-mottled and because I wanted to use two or three colors on each skein.

If you don’t like that, you’re not going to like the results of this method.

The other slight problem I ran into is that my Kroger didn’t have a very wide selection of Kool-aid, so I have no blue, which makes me sad.  And I needed more yellow and the orange… Oh the orange.  I’m going to have to go back and get more of that, too.

Anyway, I only did half my yarn yesterday, so I still have time to hunt down some blue Kool-aid and pick up some more orange and yellow.

Ha, I had in mind that Plimco would be getting a green afghan (because I have this idea that green is her favorite color) but it turns out she’s going to end up more with something that looks like a firely sunset.

I think. 

Now I just need to pick a pattern.

Oh, wait, and the “living is hard” thing: The wet yarn can be kind of heavy.  Repeatedly taking it in and out of the microwave with one hand while you talk on the phone with your dad may result in you later waking up in pain as your shoulder is all like “Oh my god!  You’re not even right handed.  Why did you use me?  Why, B., why?”