This gal dyes... yarn with Kool Aid

Late last year I talked about my fall goals, and one of them was that I wanted to try a bit of yarn dyeing using Kool-Aid. Around that time, I had made up my mind that the first sweater I attempted wasn't working out. So, I frogged it and had all this extra white yarn leftover. It's like the stars had aligned.

Kool Aid dyeing is super, super easy. And there are plenty of resources all over the Internet. Video tutorials, written tutorials, picture tutorials, just about any kind of tutorial you can think of. I've even started a Pinterest board specifically for Kool Aid dyeing and all the different techniques.

My first attempt was a major success. I went with a pretty straight forward lime green using six packets of Lemon Lime Kool-Aid and an entire 50g skein of Knit Picks worsted Wool of the Andes. Being the green lover that I am, I quite like the results.

For my second attempt, I decided to be a bit more adventurous. I wanted to try my hand at purple. Turns out purple isn't an easy color to dye. My weird results are proof of that. It also doesn't help that I went into it with no game plan what-so-ever. I figured, "hey, red and blue make purple. Right?" So, I tossed in three packets of cherry Kool Aid and about 30-something drops of blue food coloring and hoped for the best. I'm not even sure what color I'd call that. Maroon? It doesn't look quite that bright in person. I actually really like the results, it's just not exactly what I was going for.

Since then I've done a bit of reading and it turns out the red dye used in Kool Aid (Red40) tends to produce a muddy color. And the ideal red to use is Red3 which is what's used in food coloring. But apparently that also has its draw backs. I'll have to look into it more. But right now, my thoughts for the next time I attempt purple is to try blue Kool Aid with red food coloring. We'll see what happens.

Needless to say, there's still a lot I can learn about dyeing yarn. But I'm glad I made these mistakes. Without mistakes we wouldn't learn anything. I'm excited to make a few more as the dyeing adventures go on.

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