14 Packs of Kool-Aid in One Night...

...and zero calories, to boot!

My Knit Picks yarn arrived on March 1st and I was so excited I just had to dye it right away! Of course I'd already gone out and bought my supplies so I was rarin' to go! Here's how it all went down:

All set and ready to go!

I was happy to see that the skeins from Knit Picks were actually just folded flat, instead of wound into traditional skeins. They were also quite long, so I decided not to rewind them before I started. If I ever decide to do self-striping yarn, I'll have to rewind it. For my purposes, I was happy that I was ready to dye right out of the box!

Mmmm...grapey!

I invited a friend over to help, since I was dying two skeins. After settling on what colors to use, (Grape, Cherry and Black Cherry for the man's colorway, and Pink Lemonade, Lemonade and Lemon-Lime for the woman's) we prepared our "dye." We used one packet of Kool-Aid powder per one cup of water. My friend decided to hand paint the yarn using a basting brush, and I used the turkey baster. I'd read somewhere that you can expect to use one packet of Kool-Aid per ounce of yarn, but we used a little over twice that amount. Perhaps it was because we were dying superwash? At any rate, next time I would probably use more Kool-Aid; even though our colors turned out beautifully, I wouldn't have complained had they been a little brighter. Also, the yarn seemed to more readily absorb the dye that was applied with the brush.

This one was my attempt

We decided that one of us would dye the yarn in thirds lengthwise, and the other would dye in thirds widthwise. I think the one that was dyed widthwise will be a bit more variegated, perhaps self-striping in very small sections, and the one above, dyed lengthwise, will have a stronger self-striping effect.

Hanging out to dry

After we set the yarn in the microwave, I reaffixed my shower curtain rod to hang in the middle of the shower, so that any excess water would run down into the tub. However, there wasn't any, as I had blotted the yarn with a towel first to speed the drying time. Twenty-four hours later, my yarn was dry and ready to wind! I just couldn't resist winding them into skeins to get that store-bought effect:

My "swift"

Lucky for me, my patio chairs have a large circumference around the legs, and a smooth finish at the bottom. This is important because you need to be able to remove your yarn after you've finished winding it! (I had a bad experience with my piano bench a couple of weeks ago...I'll leave that one to your imagination...)

Here's the finished product:

Bee-yoo-tee-ful, yes?

That's "Prairie Fire" on the top and "Rainbow Sherbet" on the bottom. We were both SO happy with how this yarn turned out! I will definitely be doing this again in the future. Funny thing is, I was more excited about dying the yarn than I was about knitting the socks! : ) And speaking of socks, here's the pattern I decided to use for these. Wish me luck!

Till next time,
Sarah