Tuesday, November 11, 2008

My first forray into dying (the not so emo variety)

I tried yarn dying for the first time the other day. I wanted a particular color and yarn weight for a project and couldn't find it in my price range. There had recently been a post in a livejounral community about dying hair with kolaid (something that people do with yarn a lot), so I decided that perhaps dying my own yarn would be the best course of action. It would save me a ton of money and just be fun.
Lish, having been pretty damn excited about the fact that the water turns clear during the process, wanted in on the action, so I toted yarn and koolaid up to Seattle and dyed away while watching movies and Sunday night TV.
That round turned out pretty mediocre, so there was a second round last night.


















































How it began How it began

I started out with two skeins of Knit Picks Bare- Merino Wool/Silk Fingering Weight (on the right. duh.). Much hilarity over "bare" and "fingering" ensued. I have very mature friends.
an attempt at dying an attempt at dying

This was the first round of dying.
I used 7 packets of unsweetened koolaid- 1 packet per ounce of yarn. This turned out to be no where near enough and the yarn ended up a coral color. Very pretty, but totally not what I was going for.
second round of dying. second round of dying.

14 packets of koolaid this time.
I wish I had gotten a picture of the coral color of the yarn the first time. oh well.
Oooo purdy Oooo purdy

Now this is what black cherry should look like.
The cool part The cool part

Now this is the really cool part. If one were to actually make koolaid to drink, this amount of water would have about two packets. I'm sure you can envision the color of black cherry koolaid. This has FOURTEEN PACKETS of the drink mix we all know and love.
It's Clear! It's Clear!

And yet! The water is clear! The yarn soaks up ALL the dye in the koolaid. Pretty freaking rad.
so clear so clear

Totally clear water. pretty red yarn.
and pretty red pot :) and pretty red pot :)

cupcakes! cupcakes!

what yarn dying project would be complete without cupcakes? These are what was in the oven while the dying was taking place.
amazing cupcakes amazing cupcakes

They also look like nipples.
And the finished product: And the finished product:

Black cherry koolaid yarn.
It, and my whole apartment, smell like black cherry.









Yarn challah Yarn challah

A little oranger than the color really is.





It still isn't as dark as I was expecting. I think the silk didn't take the dye as well as the wool. It is still pretty and perfectly acceptable. There is always the option of overdying the finished product once I knit it. It is hard to know how this is going to look once it's knit up.

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