YARN DYEING 101 - KOOL AID

[Gothicknitter]

Thank you mandyc!!!  That was my first time dying yarn with koolaid and I owe my skillzzzz to apixiegrl!!!  It's so much fun and you forget you're an adult and resort into kid-mode when you have the sponge brush in your hand with all the colors to choose from.  The hard part is not using ALL of them and turning it into a brown mush! hehe!
~eve

[red kitty]

mine is not quite as fancy as some of these, but it's my first post of something i've done, so here are my first 6 skeins of kool-aid yarn!

i am totally addicted!
 
the light pink rose stuff will be felted flowers, and the rest will be baby/kid hats.

[guessica]

hey everyone! 

here's a second foray into kool-aid dyeing: self-striping yarn made according to Eunny's fabulous tutorial.  For more thoughts on the process, see this entry on my blog: http://www.figandplum.com/archives/000598.html.

[brena80]

Gorgeous!   I love the way it stripes!

[apixiegrl]

wow beautiful color. I like the blue against the reds.. it pops out. I luv how it knits up. I have yet to knit something with all my died yarn.. I like just looking at it... its so pretty. (^_^)

[trisarahtop]

Here is a link to diy.. an episode on making variegated yarn. They used acid dyes in the tutorial, but we used the same method with kool aid which worked out really well as kool aid has high acid content. We used a little vinegar on some of the skeins and didn't on the others. It really didn't need it and a different foam brush for each color. Hope that helps.(^_^)
 http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/na_knitting/article/0,2025,DIY_14141_4185709,00.html

So vinegar doesn't make a difference? Some tutorials I've read say to use vinegar, and some don't. I was actually coming here to ask if it makes a difference - I have a wool/cotton blend that I want to dye. I'm hoping that it goes intense but light with little flecks here and there. Hopefully it doesn't look gross when I'm done.

[apixiegrl]

Ive read that kool aid is so acidic that u don't really need to use the vinegar to set the color. just the heat will do it. I've had no problem with the colors bleeding.also... Kool aid will only work on protein fibers so the cotton part of your yarn will remain its original color. Check back to the  original link on this thread. Have fun.. thats the best part.(^_^)

[BlooCanoe]

Wow, gorgeous yarn dyeing, guessica, redkitty and everyone else!

I have a new respect for everyone's beautiful dye jobs, because after trying this last night...  I'm sad...  it didn't turn out as well as I hoped. I did two skeins in solid colours, which are ok, but my two skeins that I tried to do in multiple colours didn't work out very well.  The colours muddied into each other, so while there are different colours in the skein, each colour has muddy/browny blots though it.  For example, I did one skein half orange and half green. But the colours overlapped so there's brown blotches in the orange, and in the green. 
I hope I'm describing this properly, unfortunately I don't have a pic to show what I mean.  I'm guessing this happened because my microwave is small and I was trying to fit the yarn into a small dish and it must've just been too close to itself so the colours overlapped.  If anyone has any suggestions to help with this, I'd love to hear them. 

I also found that using a baster didn't seem to work to well- the dye just rolled off the top of the yarn. I had to actually push and squish the yarn into the dye for it to absorb it, which probably didn't help with the muddying effect.  Hmmmm. Maybe the yarn wasn't soaked enough first? I had soaked it for around 30min first in hot water tho...

anyway, it was still fun, but any comments on how to improve what I'm doing are very welcome! thanks!

[apixiegrl]

It sounds like u might have used too much water .. or maybe didn't give your yarn a good squeeze to remove the excess water before u started. We also used very concentrated dye solutions, so the yarn basically just soaked up the dye. Brown is caused by colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel. or close to opposite.. they make brown when mixed together. maybe u could tie the yarn with string where one color ends and the next color begins. it might help.. http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html Thought that link might help. (^_^)..

[BlooCanoe]

Yeah, I realized afterwards, when I looked a a colour wheel, that I hadn't chosen the best combinations of colours- I used ones that would make brown when combined (duh). I did have the yarn tied with strings to mark where I wanted to start a new colour, and I had squeezed out all the excess water before I dyed it... hmmm. Maybe I should use a brush or sponge instead of a baster.

I used a cup of water for one packet of Kool-aid, is that too much water?