Kool-aid dyeing with the kids

A few weeks ago, for fun, the girls and I dyed some yarn with kool-aid.  I thought the girls would enjoy this and I was right.  Yay me for being a cool mom!  I’ve included a close-up pic of each of my girls’ work: 1)Drama Queen; 2)Baby; 3)Lady Hops-a-lot; 4)Princess.

We started with some pale pink Berroco Pure Merino dk, which has been discontinued. Their Pure Merino was one of my very favorite yarns though, so that is disappointing. Anyway, I took a full ball of this yarn and divided it into these 4 hanks.  I tied the hanks with acrylic yarn and put each hank into a glass 9×13 pan.  I mixed each Kool-aid packet (the unsweetened variety) with a few tablespoons of water.  We used Black Cherry, Pink Lemonade, Mixed Berry, Lemonade, and Lemon-Lime.  I think though that the Lemonade didn’t show up at all, and the Pink Lemonade only made a very subtle difference.  I put a plastic spoon in each cup of Kool-aid and let them put the Kool-aid on their yarn as they liked.  We did this on the kitchen floor with trash bags under us.  After they were finished, I added just a bit of water to each dish and microwaved them for 2 minutes at a time with rest periods between until the water was clear.

I got my instructions from knitty.com.  You can see them here.  It was easy and fun!  I even bought more kool-aid so that I can do my own sometime.  I haven’t done it yet though…but one of these days…

Have you dyed yarn with kool-aid?  Will you now that you’ve read this?  Share your pics on my Facebook Page!

Happy Dyeing!