Kettle/Crockpot dyeing with Kool-aid

I started knitting a Quant today, mostly because I avoiding the sizing up and sizing down of a pattern I am making. Why avoid it? Because my temp is 101 to 102 right now with out meds and the meds I can take are putting me in a fog. (I think I have the flu that my daughter had about 2 weeks ago, which makes sense because it takes 2 to 3 weeks for the flu virus to gestate.) Anyway it is a no-go for pattern math because I am SURE I will make a mistake.

Ok so I am FINALLY getting this thing up! I have had the pictures up on Flickr for about a week but have been way too busy.



This is the yarn soaking in the crock-pot. I let it soak for about an half an hour.



These are the "kool-aids" I am using. For the record the exact colors I am using are Kool-aid Berry Blue and Wyler's Orange. Two packets of each. I pre-mixed this time in 1/2 cup of water.



Before adding the colors I moved the yarn to make a spiral from the bottom up. I added the colors with a turkey baster, making sure that the colors got to the bottom. I then turned it on low and left it alone for about an hour. The dye bath was not fully exhausted at that time so I stirred it around gently and it immediately exhausted.



The yarn is drying in this picture.




And here is is all reskeined. I still need to find a name for it... Can't think of anything.

Kool-aid dyeing part 2

So I said I would wait til Monday... I couldn't... so I did it tonight!

For the record the colors used were:
1 Wyler's Lemonade (yellow),
1 Mixade Lemon-Lime (green),
1 Kool-aid Twists Berry Blue (blue),
1 Mixade Grape (purple),
and half a package of Kool-aid Fruit Punch (red)

I started by soaking the yarn for 20 minutes then draining all the water that would pour out with out pushing on the yarn.


I made an X of the Berry Blue first, then filled each quadrant with either the grape of the lemon lime. I put the fruit punch on the grape in one big clump and the lemonade on the lemon line on one big clump.


I did the double boiler method and it took 30 minutes (I actually didn't check for 30 minutes and by then it was done). If you do this method it goes faster with a lid... I did use a cooking thermometer (100 F) to see what temp the yarn got to but the picture didn't turn out...

The reason I like the double boiler method is because you can get AWESOME colors and you can basically forget about it for periods of time because the yarn pot will never boil. In the boiling method, you can walk away but might just get a felted mess and I have never been able to get the microwave method to work. Another method I like is the steam method but that is basically what I did just not in a bag.


See the water is all clear!


The YARN!

Ok, I can live with it but I wish that it was more violet/purple than red. Oh well, It will still look good!

See the yarn Here

Kool-aid dyeing part 1

Today I tied up the Knitpicks I am going to Kool-aid dye some time next week.

It is about 3.5 yards around so we are looking at some longer repeats. I am sooo excited! I don't want to wait. I was really contemplating just making a huge knot (with help from my 2 year old daughter) and then dying that and seeing what I get.


Here are the "Kool-Aids" I have. As you can tell some are off brands but off brands work just was well so it really doesn't matter. I don't know yet what colors I want to go with. As you can tell I have and opened Kool-aid fruit punch that needs to be used, but I really don't know if I want red. Maybe a violet-blue-green would be better. I could use the red with the berry blue and add the mango and lemonade.... too many possibilities!

And the method! Which method to use!? Give me a week and I'll get the full details up!

Edit: Link to part 2