Knit Picky: Kool-Aid Dyeing

"properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit...
and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either."
~elizabeth zimmerman

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Kool-Aid Dyeing

Can you overdye dark-colored yarn with Kool-Aid? I assume that you can, but I've never done Kool Aid dyeing before, so I'm curious. I have two skeins of acrylic yarn that I bought about 5 years when I foolishly thought that I could teach myself crochet. That fantasy lasted about two weeks (I can single chain. That's it.). One skein is a pretty raspberry color, the other is a wedgewood blue. Both are nice colors in & of themselves, but I can't think what I'm going to use two whole skeins of acryclic yarn for with my newly discovered yarn-snobbery.

I mean, I don't know that many people having babies that I can sell on the idea of, "Oh, I'm not making this for you out of acryclic because I'm a cheap person, it's because I care about you! This way you can just throw it into the wash whenever you need, dear new mom." This is already going to be my ploy for one woman who is getting my first ever baby booties (assuming I start them before she has the baby next month).

I would like to turn the blue to a dark purply color that can be held with the raspberry for the Stash-buster Slippers that Lauren featured on her blog a couple of days ago (sooooo cute!). I'll make the test pair for me (hee hee) and then I can give them for Christmas if they work out. Wouldn't they be adorable with some novelty yarn or goofy doo-dads on the top of the foot? I want to experiment. :)

My Christmas knit list is enormous. I have a feeling all new knitters probably mistakenly decide to do all of these handknit gifts one time, and then after that realize how crazy and misguided that decision was. This is my year. Assorted funky scarves (on 19 needles, they'll take me a couple of hours at most), one manly scarf (a little harder), a kitty hat, a roll-brim hat, a beanie, and 5 reverse bloom washcloths. That's the one that's sort of daunting. I've done one. They are not hard, per se, just tedious. Add one increase for two rows, knit for two rows, slip stitch, slip...then come the dpns. [sigh] I shouldn't complain since the one I finished is sooo soft and cushy. I am such an incredibly tight knitter that the petals on my finished flower are very small. I ended up with about 1/4 of a skein of the CP cotton-chenille left, and the whole thing sort of puckers. It's not ugly, but it does look homemade. I'm consciously trying to knit more loosely for flowers #3+. 2/5 done, and it's getting much better!

Happy Thursday.

2 Comments:

I don't think you can dye acrylic with kool-aid. I think the acrylic might melt in the heat. But it could be interesting...

Lauren
http://almostfelted.knitblog.com

By Anonymous, at 4:48 PM
Actually you can't dye acrylic with kool-aid because it's not a protien fiber (like wool, silk, moahir, etc).
I suck at crocheting, too. I spent hours trying and end up ripping it out.
I would keep the skeins for awhile and see if a use pops up. If not, donate them to one of the charities that accepts yarn.

Betsy
http://www.what-happens.com/blog/2ktog/

By Anonymous, at 6:29 PM

2 Comments:

Former -Alongs