Kool-aid Dyeing.

I don't have any kind of setup for dyeing with commercial dyes, so I always have to resort to kool-aid and food coloring. I also use the microwave method of dyeing, because I don't like doing dishes!

Well, I picked up some roving for that dyeing project I think I mentioned in the last post. I got some white superfine merino, which I intended to dye blue and green (but ended up doing green, yellow, and pink), and some gray romney, which I dyed red.


I was disappointed that there weren't any blue kool-aids at the store, but I went with what I could find (pink lemonade, lemonade, lemon-lime). I used quite a bit of yellow, but it got eaten up by the green dye (since I worked in my bathtub, the slant caused the excess dyes to run all over the place). I'm not too upset, though, because it looks like watermelon. It's not what I was looking for, and I'm probably going to have to find something else to ply it with. I had plans for this soon-to-be yarn!

And the red:
I used cherry and tropical punch kool-aid and strawberry off-brand drink powder. The tropical punch and the strawberry worked fine, but the cherry didn't take as well. This is probably because it was at the end near the bottom of the slant, and some of the dye that should have been in the saran wrap ran down the drain. I also could have microwaved it longer...and the wool should have been more wet when I started to dye. Hopefully this will produce a slight variegation that looks nice. There are a few spots of gray that I can't decide on. Should I pick them out, or work the yarn with them in? We'll see once I get started. The watermelon is going to get spun up first.