Kool Aid Dyeing Yarn Adventure

Okay, so my knitpicks wool of the andes arrived late yesterday afternoon but dh was home so could not play with it until this morning. Many lessons learned about Kool Aid dyeing yarn today. Tyring to put it in a nutshell so we can get to the eye-candy!

~ when sending 17 yo son to store for vinegar be VERY clear what you are saying. Mom saying "get the one that is less per ounce" seems to have equated to get less ounces than a gallon! LOL It worked out in the end and I think it is funny but he still does not "get" it. Oh and before you get too excited about his side of things thinking he was soooo nice to drive to the grocery store for the vinegar and kool aid do realise that he got to drive the Miata when he went.

~Kool aid dyeing needs more than one package per skein but I am happy with the color I got using just one package of kool aid as ds (dear son) had already gone to the store when I found the online site that mentioned using 4 packages per skein! eeeks that is a ton of kool aid.

~Kool aid dyeing of yarn is much different then dyeing fabric with procion dyes! MUCH different. Less mess. less staining of my fingers/hands. and TONS less rinsing of the yarn! With fabric it could take what felt like forever to do the rinseing only part.

~Kool aid dyeing of yarn takes much less TIME then dyeing fabric.

-It took me 30 minutes to mix the vinegar and the powder in ziplock bags and stuffing the yarn in and making sure it was covered and soaked well with a spaghetti grabber spoon. Fabric can take you for ever to mix the dye baths.
-I let the plastic bags sit in the sun for about 2 1/2 hours but only because I was doing other things and loss track of time. the water that was left in the bag was clear before I left them in the sun!
-Rinsing took so little time that if I was experience at this I could have had the yarn arrive at the house at 4 pm and had the stuff all laid out to dry by 6 pm when dh (dear husband) got home.

~Kool aid DRYING of yarn takes a bit longer as I can't just stuff it in the dryer or I'll have a very long time of UNtangling the mess that will exit the dryer. But that is okay. I can see it outside my window as I type this.

So the only two negatives I can come with are:
1) I have to look at it out the window to make sure the nesting blue jays don't decide it will make a nice perch as it is drying on their favorite chairs and looking mighty colorful and tempting too!
2) I may not have the same color control over the mixing of colors that I always had when working with the procions but I can always drag those out to use but I suspect that I have enough Kool Aid colors to get along jsut fine without messing with the chemicals.
bonus negative? I realise that the 11 skeins of wool of the andes was not near enough and I wish I had ordered a LOT more.

The other 4 skeins are for playing with color striping and the next order will be lots of the 220 wool and a couple of skeins of the sock weight yarn too!

oh dear we have created a monster!

okay now for the pics! enjoy and do try the kool aid dyeing OH and I have a color you can't get Scary Blackberry which is very old leftover seasonal koolaid i found in the cupboard that i thought i had thrown away.

NOW I'm off to load the pics!
happy knitting
denise aka grandma brattie to be

PS if i did this right, this should now post on top of the photos which are in the order I want them (backwards to post remember) but i have not yet gotten used to writing them backwards. So the first pic of the three bags says "more colors" LOL and they are the first picture of the close up bags.... sigh.... maybe some day... but then I have had a cell phone for over 10 years and I can't put a new number into my address book very easily and I did not get my first text message to "go" yesterday when I needed it to reach my son..... more sighing... and I think of myself as a "young" grandma Ha!